


Tracer Moon-And-Star

by tullypoems



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Antagonism, Colonialism, Creative swears, Enemies to Lovers, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Khajiit!Ana, Lots of Tea, Major Character Injury, Minor Violence, Morrowind Main Quest, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Tea, Thieves Guild, tiny gay Tracer is gay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-04-21 05:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 102,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22041967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tullypoems/pseuds/tullypoems
Summary: Imperial prisoner Lena Oxton has been disembarked into Vvardenfell province, Morrowind, with an encrypted letter bearing the emperor's seal...Archcanon of the Tribunal Temple, Tholer Saryoni, sits up late in her offices, studying rolls upon rolls of parchment. One catches her eye: a Lost Prophecy, The Outlander Incarnate: Nerevar Reborn...In a dingy cornerclub, Ana-Amari reflects upon what has become of her branch of the Thieves' Guild. Only she and her partner remain, and she longs for a new adventure...On the balcony of her alchemist's shop in Balmora, Amélie Guillard LaCroix samples a homemade brew, far from the wealth and status of her family in Wayrest...Beneath Red Mountain, the forces of Dagoth Ur, the great evil of myth and legend, are regrouping and gathering strength...Change is in the air in Vvardenfell, and the future of the island hangs in the balance...
Relationships: Lena "Tracer" Oxton/Widowmaker | Amélie Lacroix
Comments: 102
Kudos: 44





	1. Fresh Off The Boat

**Author's Note:**

> Morrowind has maybe the most involved worldbuilding of any game I've played, so if any of the terms aren't fully explained by the story or by context, this fansite - https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page - almost certainly has more info.
> 
> NB: As raised by raging_storm, in the Overwatch canon, Oxton is 26 years old and LaCroix 33: in this story, they're both around their mid-20s, LaCroix probably a little older.

It has been decades since the island known as Vvardenfell was declared open for colonisation, since the ancestral lands of the indigenous tribes were mapped and sliced and doled out by great lords in distant, fire-warmed chambers.

Vvardenfell has been home to the Dunmer since the days of dragons and dwarves, days when warriors became kings, and kings became gods. There are some who believe such days gone for good, that in this, the 427th year of the Third Era, magic is for little more than forging a respectable career in the mages’ guild, and land the rightful property of the highest bidder.

For soldiers, pilgrims, and imperial citizens seeking fame and fortune, the new imperial town of Balmora is a hive of opportunity, a beacon of progress. To the north of town, the terraces and cobbles of High Town speak of power, connections, the trappings of Empire in uncharted territory. Downhill is Stoneforest Market, a grand plaza where the common folk ply their wares, exchange pleasing lies, and dream of a High Town manor of their own.

Across the rickety bridges over the Odai, however, is Labortown, the workers’ quarter, home to those upon whose backs such an enterprise depends. And you may spend a lifetime without encountering those whose way of life lies buried beneath the flagstones.

But it is late, my friend, and I have a great many leagues to cover before I rest. But I think we have time for one last tale. It concerns a young woman, on the wrong side of a narrow river, in a strange town, far from home. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Pass the mazte, there’s a good fellow, and I’ll begin.

* * *

‘_PAGH. THPB PTHAGH. HKKKKKK. PTHOO._’

Every heroic journey has humble beginnings. Some are humbler than others.

‘Phynaster’s _tits_.’

Balmora’s fluvial thoroughfare had never been renowned for its cleanliness, and a week of rainless, late summer humidity had done little to improve matters. Lena Oxton, erstwhile imperial prisoner, had gotten more than a taste of it.

‘By the holy bollocks of the Nine Divines, I swear: next time I’m just paying the bloody guards like a pissing normie.’

Oxton had gathered two items of intelligence from the patrons of a tradehouse in a nearby village: entry to the merchant city was prohibitive by design; and though the city watch was well staffed, those assigned to the catacombs were few, and inattentive. Moments ago, she learned something she’d never picked up during her magic lessons: waterbreathing spells are only effective in rivers that are primarily water.

She flopped heavily onto her back. Fetched up on the southern bank, she noted, judging from the arrangement of the stars. Finally, a lucky break. Ruffling the muck from her hair, she sat upright, dropped her knapsack in her lap, and checked whether her scant belongings had survived intact. The spoiled bread and cheese, she decided, could feed the rats. A small purse, with smaller coins, a few hermetically sealed potions, a letter bearing the seal of the Emperor, and her silver dagger, safe and sound in its wrappings. Still a fine blade after all these years, and not a flaw upon it. She turned it over in her palms, partly from habit, partly for pleasure. In the moonlight, her reflection gazed back. Even on a more auspicious day, her eyes could not have hidden the strain of the past weeks. The prison ship, its rough voyage, her unexpected release, the unsettlingly… _accommodating_ Imperial officers…

Perhaps it was the water on her skin that made her shiver.

It wouldn’t be her first night with pennies to her name in a strange town, though. Still, she thought, picking herself up and batting the dirt from her trousers, it was remarkable what an enterprising soul could achieve with a sunny disposition, a can-do attitude, and sticky fingers.

* * *

Lena Oxton was like a pig in shit.

Unlike the broad boulevards north of the river, Labortown was an ad hoc nightmare of slapdash architecture. Since her… ‘mutual agreement’ to leave the magical college in High Rock, she had discovered a pair of mutually agreeable truths: no one expects a thief to know magic, and no one expects a mage to rob you blind. She’d even heard the imperial ban on levitation magic hadn’t reached this far into the boonies. The _possibilities_.

Balmora’s architects had, in their wisdom, copied the Imperial fashion of flat rooftop balconies – perfect for little soirées – in the wettest province this side of the Black Marsh. For one so versed in the noble art of Mysticism, it was a playground. In a blink of arcane light, Oxton transported herself from terrace to alley to rooftop. Within the hour she had the measure of the place, that mental map no thief can live without, and her first decent meal since making landfall. Labortown was like most quarters of its kind: buckling infrastructure; highly visible guards; taxes on everyone except those who can afford it. Everything a city needs to cultivate its very own underculture. And even thieves do well to unionise.

_There_.

On a doorframe in the shadows, set back a little from the street, a few lines etched in the wood. To the untrained eye, indistinguishable from the dozens of other fractures; to Oxton, unmistakeably, a four-pointed diamond framing a circle. She ran a finger around the deep grooves with a smile. It had been too long since she’d checked in with a real community of professionals. The wooden sign might have read _South Wall Cornerclub_, but another name rang truer: _The Thieves’ Guild_.

Oxton ran a hand through her hair and straightened her cloak. Showtime.

She pushed open the door.

Even in the dull lamplight, it was clear that the low-ceilinged room was all but deserted. A large, avuncular bartender polished a flagon with a cloth that looked as worn-out as Oxton suddenly felt. At a corner table, a few steps from the fireplace, an elder khajiit thumbed a well-loved paperback, the spine strained beyond repair. She glanced at the blow-in, not bothering to hide the contempt in her one good eye.

‘We’re closed, smooth-skin.’ Her tail swished restlessly. There weren’t many khajiit in High Rock, but Oxton knew a danger sign when she saw one.

‘This how you greet every new friend, love? No wonder business is booming.’ Seeing a sign, and acting upon it, are not the same thing.

The khajiit barked a laugh, every tooth bare. ‘This one knows not to whom she speaks.’

‘Now, Ana-Amari, we talked about this,’ the barman began, his nordic accent thick and placatory.

The hiss she released was less a threat than a violent breed of sigh. ‘We talk about many things, Reinhardt, perhaps you might spill them all to strange women.’ She reclined wearily in her seat. Oxton’s butter-wouldn’t-melt smirk was not helping. ‘This one will explain herself or this one will lose a finger.’

Oxton placed a hand on one hip, and with the other made a series of articulate gestures in thieves’ cant: _don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, den-mother_.

Ana-Amari rolled her eye. ‘Precious. An imperial thief come to East Bumblefuck to show off her party tricks. No one here uses that dialect, you’ll get nothing but blank looks and quick knives.’

Reinhardt stowed his flagon. ‘We’re all imps here, my darling! Just because you’re not fresh off the boat like our friend here-‘

‘Honeysuckle,’ Ana-Amari offered a pained smile, ‘apple of my remaining eye, perhaps you might go and put some powder on your nose.’

He folded his large arms and grumbled to himself. ‘Fine. It is late anyhow. But I swear to Dibella, you can dump the body yourself this time.’

Ana-Amari blew him a small kiss as he tramped up the narrow staircase to the living quarters. ‘I do love him,’ she said to the walls, ‘but such a dramatic soul. Sit.’ She pushed a stool with a hind paw.

Oxton eyed it carefully.

‘Your highness,’ Ana-Amari rubbed a furry hand across her forehead, ‘had I the will to harm you, I should have exercised it by now. Nice blade, by the way. Vintage, I believe.’

Oxton instinctively placed a hand on her knapsack. It was safely hidden from sight, inside the bag, inside its leathers. How-?

Ana-Amari tapped her nose. ‘Silver,’ she explained patiently, ‘smells sweeter than moon sugar. Almost floral on a full moon, I have observed. Regardless. Join me.’

Oxton did as she was told. Her palms itched. Nothing about this was going to plan. ‘So,’ she brushed off her cloak and laid it across her lap, ‘what’s the story here? Today a saint’s day or summat?’

Ana-Amari sighed through her teeth. ‘Between here and the river,’ she asked, ‘how many guards?’

Oxton jutted her jaw in thought. ‘Six in uniform, three off-duty.’

‘Mm. Give or take. And it is not far to the river.’ She folded her hands on her lap. ‘Estimate for me: how many souls abide in Balmora.’

She did the maths. It added up.

‘The marks on the doorframe, my kitten, are from happier times.’ Amari leaned forward. ‘This one listens to her den-mother’s words: find another town. Learn a trade. Develop a skooma habit. Whatever pleases you.’ She stood, folded her arms. ‘But do it quickly.’

Well, Oxton thought, I’m dead one way or another. Here goes. ‘I’m here to deliver a letter, perhaps you know the guy. His friend said it was urgent.’

Ana-Amari raised an eyebrow. ‘Who.’

‘It’s for a chap by the name of Caius. Caius Cosades. Ever heard of him?’

There are passive silences, and there are active silences. This silence could move mountains.

She unfolded her arms and raised a finger toward Oxton’s face. ‘Where did you learn that name.’ It was not a question.

Oxton pulled the letter out of her pack, turned it so the seal caught the dim lamplight. Ana-Amari snatched it up, and swiftly drew a claw across the seal, holding the paper up to the nearest light, her eye darting swiftly from line to line.

‘Fuck me running, mate, that’s the cocking Imperial seal!! Folk’ve been de-bollocked for less-‘

Ana-Amari’s face was thunderous. ‘This one stops mewling or this one mewls no more.’

Oxton returned her expression but didn’t press her luck. She pushed herself away from the table and lifted the tattered paperback her new friend had been reading. _Hard in Hightown_. Blimey.

‘Thought the Temple banned this sick filth,’ she muttered.

Ana-Amari did not respond. She rolled up the parchment, tight in her fist. ‘Do you trust me, Lena Oxton.’

‘Oh very clever, you read my name-’

‘Do you trust me,’ she repeated, tone unchanged.

Oxton glanced from the khajiit to the paper, and back. ‘Sure,’ she shook her head. ‘Yes. I trust you.’

‘Unwise. But good. Cosades is dead. And he left me with a debt. I will train you in his absence.’

She threw the parchment in the fire.

Oxton cursed the Nine Divines and the holiest saints she could think of.

Ana-Amari was already reaching behind the bar for a leather pouch, which she unrolled on the tabletop. ‘I will thank this one for sparing my establishment her profanities.’

‘Look, I bleedin’-well know I’m up shit creek, love, but you’re thruppence short of a shilling, and I ain’t lifting my pinky finger until I hear a lick of good, honest, tax-paying sense.’ She assumed a posture which she hoped projected defiance.

Ana-Amari fixed an eye on hers. ‘The Emperor himself, may his cousin-fucking dragon-blood live a thousand years, thinks you could make a good spy in his newly acquired colony. Ana-Amari does not meddle in governmental affairs, and besides, Ana-Amari is a thief, not a spy.’ She thought a moment and packed some intricate-looking tools into a satchel. ‘A very _talented_ thief to get this old and still have her good looks, mind you, and what is a spy but a thief who minds her business and keeps her hands to herself?’

‘Oh jolly good, and I’m supposed to just trot along after you, am I?’

‘You can discuss it with the Emperor’s guards if you prefer,’ Amari shrugged as she brushed past her new protégée. ‘Or,’ she pulled a black cloak off a hook by the door and swung it round her shoulders with a flourish, ‘you can come with me, and steal a diamond for your poor old den-mother.’

She stepped out into the night, her pads all but silent on the soft earth. Behind her, Lena Oxton stared helplessly at the open door.

_Nothing_ about this was going to plan.

* * *

‘Where are we going?’

‘Keep your voice down.’

A stage-whisper: ‘_Wheeeeerreee arrree weee goooiii-_’

‘This one has the strangest memory. A moment ago she asks for help. Now she asks for a black eye.’

‘Look, this isn’t my idea of a romp at the seaside either, mate.’

‘And for me, it is my name day and feast day, all mashed up in a sweetroll. Here.’

‘What.’

‘We are here, dense kitten. Have you been chewing mushrooms while my back was turned?’

At the end of the alleyway, a large wooden gate. A heavy metal keyhole, locked from the inside, and twenty feet of red stone wall, turning slick in the gathering rain. High up in the darkness, dim firelight through the watchtower’s window.

‘What’s in there.’

‘_Who_’s in there.’ She fetched the leather-bound tools from her satchel.

‘Kynareth’s holy bush, you are wearing down my last nerve.’

‘When was the last time you saw a diamond.’

‘At my last ambassador’s reception, during high tea with the Emperor’s fucking horse.’

Ana-Amari didn’t blink. ‘And behind this gate is where the Emperor’s fucking horse lives. Open it.’

Oxton blinked. And with a smile and a click of her fingers, blinked out of sight. Ana-Amari’s ears pricked up: soft chanting from the other side of the gate. It swung open, silently, bathed in a soft lilac light. The light emanated from Oxton’s outstretched palm. She ended the spell with another fingerclick, and darkness returned. She curtseyed.

‘The lilac is a pleasant touch.’

‘Thank you kindly.’

‘It will add such flavour to our arrest reports. These aren’t ornamental, take them.’ She shoved the lockpicking tools into Oxton’s chest. ‘If _I_ can see when crime is happening, so can the guards.’

‘Khajiits can see in the dark though,’ Oxton huffed.

‘The plural of khajiit is khajiit, hairball. And if you think my kin haven’t taken the emperor’s shilling, you are greener than I feared. Now.’ She folded her arms and leaned on a hitching-post. ‘Take me to my diamond.’

Oxton held her tongue. Fine. _Fine._ She surveyed the street. Squatting on her haunches, she could see track marks in the packed earth.

‘Looks like this is the delivery gate. Can’t be many dispensaries in nob-town, and the posher chemists use powdered diamonds. Follow the road, find your stones.’

Ana-Amari chewed absently on her claw. ‘You await a biscuit and a pat on the head? Move.’

Oxton pushed a fist into her eye socket. Nothing about this was going to plan.

* * *

‘Jolly decent of you to pick a mark with an actual _mark_,’ Oxton tapped the sign, an artful rendering of a mortar and pestle. Ana-Amari shrugged almost imperceptibly, eyeing the street, still as a shadow’s breath.

Oxton looked up at the stars. An hour or so before dawn proper. Long enough, gods willing. She turned to the door, prepared a cantrip and raised a hand to cast it on the unsuspecting lock.

A paw closed round her wrist with frightening speed. In the dimness of the smallest hours, Oxton barely saw her move.

‘No magic. This one will train her thiefwork or this one will throw herself in the Odai.’

Oxton snatched her arm free. ‘And that’s my frigging lockpicking hand, den-granny. Arkay’s _arse_.’

Ana-Amari raised her hands in placation. She sat down cross-legged, facing the street, sunk into the folds of her cloak. If she hadn’t watched her do it, Oxton could’ve sworn there was nothing there but sack of ash-yams.

‘There’s a trestle up to the balcony,’ she whispered, ‘I’m gunna climb it. Bet your last drake the locks’re easier up there.’

Maybe the yams shrugged. Maybe not. Oxton spat on her palms and got climbing. In the broad avenues of High Town, she felt out of place, exposed, even in the witching hours. Cursing the temporary bar on magic, she tipped herself over the balcony’s low wall, laying flat on her back to listen for movement below. No footsteps, no guards. Time to get to work.

She got up onto her haunches and patted the stray earth off her leathers.

‘Uh?’

Lena Oxton made a noise like a rat being stepped on by a silt strider. The pile of blankets beside the upstairs door was talking. The pile of blankets was a person. She froze. Fuck. Fucking _fuck_.

‘Oh! I’m sorry,’ the woman pressed the heel of her palm around her eye, ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you.’

Oxton’s mind raced. Woman. Blanket. Apothecary balcony. Owner? Drugs?? Zenithar have mercy. Here goes nothing.

‘As well you _might be_, miss! Interrupting an officer of the law on her patrol.’ She readied a teleportation cantrip in her mind. She didn’t fancy returning to her new boss empty-handed and potentially identified, but rather that than a swift, permanent return to the cells. ‘Whatcha doing outdoors on a night like this? You’ll catch your death!’

‘Oh, my apologies, officer,' the woman mumbled, ‘I was… ah, enjoying the fresh air.’ Oxton caught a whiff of something she suspected she’d do time for possessing. The woman flailed one arm, then the other, free of her sodden sheets. Through the open door behind her, Oxton could see cabinets, rows of jars of ingredients, a few smaller, fancier containers perched on top of a cupboard. _Hello_. ‘Would you care for some tea?’

Oxton was taken distinctly off-guard. ‘Buh.’

The woman squinted.

‘Yes. Yes! Yes, it’s the least you could do under the circumstances,’ Oxton sniffed.

The woman squinted further. Oxton fought to stop her eye from twitching.

‘Green or black?’ the woman asked, stepping out of the sodden duvet and into the house. It was at this moment Oxton realised how long it had been since she’d seen another woman in her smallclothes. And that Breton accent…

‘_GREEN_,’ she squeaked, scooting into the warmth. The woman scooped up a nightgown off the fanciest chair Oxton had seen this far into the hinterlands, filled a small kettle from the water bucket and hung it over the low fire in the corner. With a whisper and a small gout of magical flame, the woman brought it cracklingly to life.

In the eerie light, Oxton took in her surroundings. The single room was bigger than any apartment she’d ever rented. It struck her that this was the nicest place she’d ever been wilfully invited into. Maintaining her cover, she perused apparently random nooks and crannies.

‘I take it you are the proprietor of this establishment, missus…?’

The woman shook her head with a smile. ‘Ah, where on _earth_ are my manners? Amélie LaCroix.’ She dropped some fragrant leaves into the kettle. ‘_Miss_ Amélie LaCroix.’

Oxton touched a forelock deferently. ‘I expect you’ve taken all due precaution against sneakthieves and the like, _Miss_ LaCroix? Lot of _unsavoury_ characters in town nowadays.’

‘Un_savoury_, you say,’ LaCroix smiled. ‘They would find me their match, I am sure.’ Her eyes seemed golden in the magical light, the fire quickly bringing the kettle to a whistle. Amélie wrapped her hand in a thick glove and decanted a little into an intricately painted cup. She held it up to be taken. ‘Here you are, Officer…’

‘Toxteth,’ Oxton snapped to attention, ‘at your service, milady.’ As Amélie passed the cup, their fingers met.

‘Tox-teth,’ Amélie repeated, as if tasting it. ‘Breton?’

‘Ah, a fine spot, miss! Parents moved to the Imperial City with the army, hence the, uh, accent.’

‘Of course.’ She let the silence hang in the air a second, then exhaled. ‘Well, what must you think of me, self-medicating on the balcony like a lunatic.’

Oxton chuckled warmly. ‘_Well_, if it’s the oddest thing I see tonight it’ll be a jolly good shift!’ She sipped her tea. ‘Hooaah, that’s the ticket. Odd flavour! Bit of a kick.’

LaCroix placed herself neatly in an ornate oaken armchair, and reclined, head slightly tilted, observing. ‘A blend of my own design. Some of the ingredients were surprisingly difficult to procure.’ Oxton could’ve sworn there was a glint in her eye, a tiny quirk in her smile. ‘You mentioned precautions?’

‘Oh yes, miss. Some alchemists, they say, particularly in the more _civilised_ quarters of our burgh, use all manner of fineries in their concoctions. Some of the lads _swear_ you can’t brew a good invisibility potion without diamonds!’ She laughed heartily and took a swig of her tea. ‘Prattle, of course.’ She studied the leaves gathering in the teacup. Something… familiar.

‘Well, Officer Toxteth, I am afraid the lads are quite right. I keep mine in that little jar on the mantlepiece.’ She flicked an idle finger towards the hearth.

Oxton couldn’t believe her luck. She readied the teleportation spell in her mind, her free hand weaving a little ready magic. ‘Well, sew my britches.’ She strolled nonchalantly toward the fireplace, bathing in its heat, trying to steady her voice: Toxteth would be impressed, but not _too_ impressed. ‘That’s a right turn up for the books. Wait till the chaps hear about _this!_’

‘Of course,’ LaCroix began, raising herself from her chair, ‘there is one, _vital_ ingredient to a good invisibility potion. A little less dazzling than my diamonds.’ She closed the space between herself and Oxton, resting a gentle hand on the thief’s shoulder. Oxton looked up into her eyes: between the duvet and the armchair, she hadn’t noticed that her host stood at least half a head taller than her. And that smell…

Oh, _fuck_.

‘Bittergreen,’ she stated, flatly, ‘which, as I am sure you have begun to notice, makes for a quite delightful narcotic.’

The cup slipped from Oxton’s hand, spilling the herbs across the floor.

‘You think I would set up in a shithole like this without knowing the constabulary inside and out? I must say though, you played along splendidly.’ What warmth had been in her voice had disappeared. ‘Perhaps you are not _unfamiliar_ with the long arm of the law.’

Oxton crashed heavily against the mantle as her legs started to buckle beneath her. She pushed herself upright, turning to face her poisoner, back pushed desperately to the wall, a fly in a web.

‘Mind your step, chérie, that is dreadfully difficult to replace.’

‘Please, miss, there’s been a misunderstanding,’ she begged, her sibilants beginning to slur.

‘One you will never make again, I daresay,’ Amélie smiled, her gaze forensic.

‘There’s just… one thing… you need to know about me.’

Amélie rolled her eyes. ‘There will be ample time for your life story once I have summoned the real guards.’

Oxton shot her a toothy grin.

‘I take stronger stuff than that with my porridge.’

A blinding flash of magical light filled the room. When it dissipated, Oxton was gone. Amélie twirled around furiously to the window, looked over the edge of the balcony, threw her gaze down the street. It was like she had blinked out of existence. A thought struck her like a lead ball in her stomach. She swept inside.

There, on the mantlepiece, exactly as she had expected. An empty spot where a small jar of diamonds had been.

_Putain de fucking merde_.

Well, she _had_ wanted a little excitement to come to this backwater.

* * *

Oxton hobbled heavily down an alleyway. She’d cast the spell in desperation, thanking Zenithar she hadn’t fetched up halfway through a wall. She lurched behind a low stack of crates. The bittergreen hadn’t been enough to knock her out, true, but sleep pulled at her mind, her eyes, her legs, and getting lifted in the morning among the spuds and rice would be a properly shite way to go back to the clink. She fished around in her knapsack. Her fingers closed on a small vial she kept in case of emergency. She popped the cork and held it to her mouth, trying to ignore the vile odour. She raised a jaundiced look to the heavens.

_Whatever one of you holy cunts is responsible for this clusterfuck, this one’s for you_.

A few minutes later the dry heaves began to subside. Oxton pulled a sleeve across her mouth and tried, once more, to overlook the smell.

‘Who goes there??’ An official-sounding voice came from a door at the end of the alley.

Oxton looked up at the sky once more, weakly flipping a two-finger salute at the stars. ‘My name is Lady Morvena Hlaalu, third in line to the poxy throne, and I command you to lower your voice, you’ll wake the children.’

The man audibly relaxed. Whatever hardware he’d drawn returned to its scabbard. ‘For fuck’s sake.’ He strode over to where Oxton was standing. She’d blown the last of her magicka, she knew it. She braced herself against the wall with one hand. He glanced down at the puddle of vomit and back at her, stony faced.

‘Did you take any?’

Oxton looked at him, a study in confusion.

He pointed at the sacks. ‘Potatoes, love, did you nick one.’

In the darkness, Oxton had to squint to take a good look at him. A slight figure, old, dressed in commoner’s clothes. ‘N-no.’

‘Here.’ He plucked one out of the closest sack and threw it at her. Oxton surprised herself by catching it. ‘You’re gunna have a wretched headache in the morning by the looks of you, you’ll do better without an empty belly. Now,’ he continued, propping her upright, ‘you direly need to piss off before the guards pick you up, and you’re a long way from Labortown. Follow this alley to the end, take a right, follow the wall to the river. You can take it from there, right?’

Oxton nodded limply. The old elf nodded and turned to head back indoors. ‘Thanks, mate.’

‘Thank me by sorting your shit out,’ he smiled. ‘They don’t pay me enough to hand kids over to the filth, but if I catch you here again…’

Oxton shook her head. ‘I’m a ghost, granddad. Kynareth bless you.’

‘Yeah, you too. Pass it forward, right?’ He closed the door. A light inside snuffed out, and the alley was dark once more.

Oxton was gone. A few days later, local taverns were abuzz with news of an old elf who’d bought a plot of land outside Pelagiad, with a diamond the size of a fist he’d found in a sack of potatoes.

Now all she had to survive was the bollocking she had coming. Old cat must be scared out of her furry little wits.

* * *

A stone hearth. An intricately woven rug. A large, heavy, worn wooden desk. A fire in its embers.

A woman, holding one parchment among dozens up to the moonlight, her lamp long since run out of oil.

A tentative knock at the door. The woman makes a noise the knocker understands as assent: the woman will not be taken from her reading.

‘A-archcanon? You told me to let you know when it passed midnight.’

A long exhale.

‘So I did.’ In her many decades spent rising through the ranks of the Temple, Tholer Saryoni never dreamt she would have an office of her very own, in the High Fane itself, not a quarter mile from the palace of Vivec, the god-king of Vvardenfell.

She never thought she’d feel so tired.

‘Archcanon?’

She’d drifted off with her thoughts, again. Saryoni drew herself back to alertness. It wouldn’t do to appear weak in front of her disciple. ‘Acolyte,’ she began, ‘what does Lord Vivec teach us in his 27th lesson?’

‘Oh! Ah, that all language is based on meat, Archcanon.’

Gods above and below. In her weaker moments, Saryoni despaired of the god-king’s poetic relationship to metaphor.

‘Verse four, Acolyte.’

‘Aha!’, the priest squeaked, his face bright with divine revelation, ‘“The truest body of work is made up of silence”.’

‘Good.’ Saryoni smiled, not unkindly. The young Acolyte was enthusiastic, and he truly had set his heart to his calling. ‘Silence is where we find our truth. And where I found myself, moments ago.’

A penny dropped. ‘A-apologies, Archcanon, I will see myself out. I should not have interrupted-‘

The woman raised a hand. ‘That will do, Acolyte Falavel. I thank you for the reminder. Had you not arrived I am sure I should not have slept at all. Until tomorrow.’

‘Good night, Archcanon. Walk with virtue.’

‘Walk with virtue, Acolyte.’ The door closed with hardly a click.

Saryoni looked over the papers one last time. The ink was faint, the parchment badly worn at the edges, but the message was clear. Clearer to her, perhaps, than anyone in Vvardenfell.

‘The Lost Prophecy: The Outlander Incarnate: Nerevar Reborn.’

Saryoni considered those words one last time, placed the scroll neatly in a hidden drawer in her desk, closed it with care, and locked it tight.

* * *

The chambers beneath the High Fane were old. The surface architecture was practical but impressive, a grand elaboration on the traditional Dunmer style of local temples across the island, from Molag Mar to Ald Velothi. If Vivec’s intention was to project their status as first among their equals, they’d botched the proportions.

Below the surface was a hive of administration. On the east of the Fane, the Hall of Wisdom, the narrow corridors of which Saryoni now walked, a bundle of parchment under one arm, a steaming mug of something herbal in her free hand. If the strain of recent nights showed beneath her eyes, neither the librarians nor the scholars, and certainly not the Hall’s bushy-tailed trainee priests making way as she passed, dared comment. Saryoni descended a staircase at the end of the hall, opening a door with her elbow.

Unlike most mornings, she decided to catch her breath.

Even at this early hour, the Library of Vivec was close to full capacity, scholars and clergy in quiet contemplation, the examination and dissection of the holy works. High up on the walls, carved windows let pass the early morning light, catching the dust as it rose and fell, picking out the wall-carvings that told the many tales of the Tribunal. Saryoni wondered how many of her charges had slept, how many had slept enough.

As she had struggled her way up the ranks of the Temple, Saryoni had often held this room in her mind, a symbol of the Temple’s integrity, its understanding, its will to rule with the mind, and not the sword.

As she’d grown older and pushed closer to the heart of the great beast, what had seemed polar opposites had frustratingly blurred.

The Fane had a second wing. The Hall of Justice. As Archcanon, Saryoni had full authority over both halls, including the small army of warrior-priests the Temple anointed as Ordinators, the holy arm of Lord Vivec. Authority on paper, and authority in practice, did not always harmonise.

Saryoni sipped her tea and tried not the think of the Hall of Justice.

‘Good morning Archcanon!’

_Saints preserve us_. She composed herself. ‘Three blessings, Acolyte Falavel. I trust the day finds you rested?’

‘Three blessings, Archcanon. I am ready to do the Lord’s will.’ His eyes shone. She liked Falavel. He was an impressively poor liar. She would have to find him an assignment somewhere far from the backbiting and obstructionism of the Fane, where his heart could do its good work unfettered.

‘How many books are in this library, Falavel? Seems like something you might know.’

‘Indeed I do, Archcanon!’ Falavel glowed. ‘There are over twenty-five thousand individually bound tomes, though of course the collection grows weekly. The Lord’s golden wisdom is worth a thousand swords.’

Saryoni smiled. ‘We are of one mind, Falavel.’ She sipped her tea. ‘How many tomes are in the temple library of Maar Gan?’

Falavel’s brow furrowed. ‘Archcanon? Maar Gan, hm. I could requisition that information-’

‘Or on the shelves of the chapel in Vos? Our sites of worship are few among the Telvanni lords.’

Falavel fetched a nub of charcoal from his robes and jotted a note on a scrap of parchment. ‘Maar Gan… Vos…’

She couldn’t torture the poor boy further. ‘Falavel, this is a lesson, not a quest. Enough scribbling.’ He paused and exhaled. ‘I have often wondered what good it does to have five dozen copies of _The Consolations of Prayer __in the Fane_ when so many have none. We eat three meals every day and I hear reports of the northern temples subsisting on yam soup.’

‘The storms from Red Mountain have been worsening, Archcanon. Our supply lines-’

‘Are barely worse now than when they operated at full capacity. Acolyte Falavel…’ Saryoni felt her shoulders sink. She could feel the nervous energy of the young man at her side. She remembered her place, as she remembered his. It would be dangerous for anyone to say more, even at her rank. ‘I have changed my mind. This is a quest. Take a note.’

Falavel’s whole demeanour changed in a thrice. Orders, he understood.

Saryoni, too, fell into a familiar groove. Planning. Pulling the strings available to her to their best advantage. ‘Take inventory of our stocks. For one month, from the festival of St Llothis, the Fane will commit to regular fasting. We will turn our minds to charity and solidarity with our siblings under the Tribunal. I want to know how much we can spare, and how quickly it can be distributed around the chapels of Vvardenfell. I will draw from my own fortune if needs be. Do this in the name of Vivec.’

Falavel’s eyes were glassy as he turned to leave, making a sign of blessing where his voice failed. Saryoni allowed herself to enjoy the moment. The coming days would be difficult, but bearable, and there is, she thought, great community in righteous hardship. She walked on, down the rows upon rows of books, the light growing dimmer as she passed further into the heart of the Fane.

The next meeting, the only one on her agenda for the day, filled her with dread. Far beyond the last library stack, past the stockrooms and custodial supply cupboards, an unadorned alcove. Saryoni pushed a small key into a crack between two bricks, then muttered a cantrip. Not for the first time that morning, she felt a burning desire to check over her shoulder for a presence she knew could not be there. A symbol of the Tribunal glowed above her, the wall swung open, and Tholer Saryoni stepped inside.

‘Archcanon.’ A imperious voice greeted her from the gloom.

‘I hope I have not kept you waiting, Spymaster Cosades.’

The figure at the table waved a hand at the door, shutting it tight without a creak.

The thousand shelves of the Library of Vivec continued gathering dust. The sun rose over the Fane, and the innumerable citizens of Vivec City, of Vvardenfell province, began their days, the mechanisms of power meshing into life. Tholer Saryoni, Archcanon of the Temple, deep in the catacombs carved out by the divine hand of the god-king himself, heard the words that would confirm her fears, words that would change history.

Dagoth Ur, the lost god of Red Mountain, had returned.


	2. You Can't Go Back

Dawn broke over Balmora. The clear night and shortening days had left a chill underfoot. The eastern watchtower, by some measure the tallest building in Labor Town, began casting its shadow, a great moving finger reaching every corner of the district, from morning to gloaming.

Under one of the many low bridges across the Odai, a rat worried the last scraps off a bone. Footsteps overhead. With a leap and a scrabble it squashed through an open hatch, and into the catacombs.

Lena Oxton stopped to catch her breath, leant heavily on the ledge, hocked a gobbet into the sluggish water. She rested her head on the cool stone. Breathed deeply. Coughed wretchedly. Kept walking. Must keep walking.

Under kinder auspices, she might have admired what the dawn lent to the city’s lower district. For a hour, twice a day if you were lucky, the drab stonework was radiant, the river dazzled, the patchy greens clinging to the sides of the road revealed their inner light.

Oxton hadn’t the energy for aesthetics. The city in daylight was as strange to her as it had been in last night’s darkness. No respectable citizen would be out on the street at this hour, and she wasn’t about to ask a guard for directions.

She allowed herself a bitter little chuckle at the thought. Not far from the riverbank, the unpredictable network of alleys beckoned.

Without access to her bird’s-eye view she was lost within minutes. Her kingdom for a magicka potion. Her kingdom for the coin to afford one. Fucking kingdoms. Fucking kings. If she ever so much as clapped _eyes _on so much as a beshitten _duke _then by _Stendarr _she’d_-_

‘Are you lost, child.’

Oxton snapped back to attention. She had the queasy sensation of being woken from a dream.

‘You were muttering something.’

‘Oh. Oh! Sure, just a, uh, long night, innit. Only young once, ey.’ She strained a smile, tried to focus on the figure before her, but her eyes wouldn’t quite oblige. The early light seemed to shimmer on their cloak, a vibrant green-blue. Beautiful.

‘Perhaps I can set you on the proper path.’ A woman’s voice. Brisk, clipped. Dunmer accent?

As slow as the sunrise rousing the town, understanding blossomed in Oxton’s head.

‘Southwall.’ Her tongue felt heavy. ‘Few friends there. New in town.’

‘I see.’ There was a chill silence. Oxton felt her breath come shallowly.

‘And given the sun’s coming _thatta_way, I reckon-‘

‘You’re in no fit state.’ The woman sounded… disappointed? Some folk can’t leave well enough alone, Oxton supposed. Temple-y do-gooder type, maybe. She felt a surprisingly strong arm catch her under the shoulder, propping her upright. ‘Come.’

Oxton could do little to protest. They shuffled forth together. She considered the extraordinary density of her fortunes in the past day. She wondered about which of the Divines might be responsible. She listened to the birdsong breaking the stillness, its foreignness to her ears. She supposed she should make conversation.

‘So. You’re up early.’

‘The dawn suits me.’

‘Where’d you find this dress? Looks fancy.’

‘Wisdom asks fewer questions, outlander.’

‘Been accused of many things, never wisdom. What’s your name?’

‘Mind your step,’ the woman said, guiding Oxton up a flight of stairs. She thought she recognised a house. Maybe the cart outside? That would mean-

‘It’s the second turn at the end, right? Just on down the alley there?’

‘That is correct. I assume it you can take it from here?’

She barely sounded out of breath. What do they _feed_ people around here?

‘Yeah… I reckon so.’ Oxton blinked. She felt… better? Still needed a helluva beauty nap, but it’s incredible what a little kindness does for one’s constitution. She took a few uneasy steps toward the alley, then caught herself. ‘Oh, here, missus, I owe you-‘

Oxton was alone.

‘Missus?’ She turned around, peering as far as she could into the branching alleyways. Maybe she wasn’t the only teleporter in town after all. Hadn’t even heard her casting the spell. Then, something caught her eye, something glinting on the stone steps, caught in one of the few feeble beams of light to filter through the canopies overhead. ‘Oh shit, missus!? You dropped something!’

No-one but the rats, and a snore emanating faintly from the upper levels.

She squatted down and inspected it. A ring.

She turned it over in her hand. Seen nicer, seen worse. Maybe she’d hold on to it in case they bumped into each other again. How about that, Oxton thought as she slipped it on, perfect fit. She admired it. Zenithar’s undercrackers, it’s been a weird day.

Oxton’s brow furrowed.

She was alive, sure, but she had a stood-up khajiit to face. She wondered how many diamond’s it’d take to simmer her down. As light on her feet as she could manage, Lena Oxton hurried down the alleyway, as the city broke its slumber.

* * *

The club was exactly where the stranger had directed her. She crept up to the door, pressed her ear against it. With any luck the old cat would be asleep. She could catch a few winks on a bench, maybe-

The door swung open. Oxton fell on her face on the hard woven carpet. Before she could refill her lungs, there was a dead weight on her back, a paw wrenching her arm in place. In Oxton’s condition, it might as well have been iron chains.

‘_This one is either bugfuck stupid or thinks her den-mother is_,’ Ana-Amari hissed, inches from her ear.

A bolt of pain as she applied pressure to Oxton’s finger-joints. Something popped.

‘Fucking-! _Diamonds in the bag! The bag!! _Gods above and below…!!’

Ana-Amari inhaled slowly. Her grip was steel.

‘Say I believe this one.’ With her free hand, she flipped open the satchel at Oxton’s side. ‘Does her bag have traps? Speak truly or the pain is worse.’

Oxton gritted her teeth and tried to breathe steadily. ‘No. None. Who’s gunna rob _me_?’

‘Unwise.’ She fished out a small velvet bag, tassels fastened. She placed it on the ground by her side. With the same hand, Ana-Amari cast something that left Oxton feeling… numb? ‘This one will not go flitting around like a song-thrush. This one will sit still, and this one will talk.’ Finally, slowly, the old cat stood, bag in hand, bustled Oxton toward a corner table.

Oxton pulled herself up with her good hand, slumped onto the low bench. She tried a little healing spell on the dislocated finger. Nothing.

‘This one should open her ears. No magic until den-mother’s say-so.’

‘No need.’ Oxton kept unbroken eye contact. Gripped her finger in her fist. Pulled.

In the days that followed, she would try, unsuccessfully, to forget the noise it made.

‘I am curious, do this one know many theatrical thieves?’

‘No, but I’ve met a few fucking comedians in my time.’

Ana-Amari bared her teeth, maybe with humour. She adjusted her jacket as she sat on the opposite side of the table. ‘So. You have a long chat with a new lady friend. There is a commotion. There is light like fucking midsummer’s day. Then you are nowhere, then you are here.’ She dragged a claw on the table, the surface breaking like a fish through water. ‘Tell your mother a tale.’

Oxton pointed. ‘You think I got pinched. You think I gave you up in exchange for my free-walking arse.’

‘Incredible. A clown. An acrobat. Now a mind reader. Eat a sword and this one is her own rat-bitten circus.’

‘There. Look in the bag. Don’t believe me, fine. But if you think the coppers would let _those stones_ waltz out of custody you’re bloody barmy.’

‘Stones?’ Ana-Amari was no longer joking.

‘Yeah, in the bag. Count them. Should be more’n enough.’

Ana-Amari blinked. ‘Them.’

A tremolo of worry tuned up in Oxton’s gut. ‘The diamonds. In the bag.’

Ana-Amari snatched it up and hastily undid the ties. She looked inside, clenched her jaw, and placed the bag back on the table like it was day-old rat meat. She rubbed her jowls in her paw.

Oxton looked from bag to khajiit. ‘What? You were the one who was horny for diamonds and now you’re-‘

‘One.’

‘-giving me the… eh?’

‘_One_. Ana-Amari said, _one_ diamond. One diamond does not interest the guards, one diamond interests a friend of Ana-Amari with moderately deep pockets. Ana-Amari is happy. My friend is happy. This one’s friend is _un_happy, but not so sorely that the _guards_ are unhappy. _One_ diamond.’

Oxton’s shoulders sank. She wondered which of the Divines was responsible.

‘_This_,_’_ Ana-Amari poured a bagful of stones onto the wood, ‘could buy Ana-Amari a High Town penthouse and enough sugar that she forgets her name, your name, how many gallons make a kilderkin.’

‘Alright, I get it.’

A fist on the table. The diamonds jump. Oxton jumps. ‘No. Untrue.’ She refilled the bag with diamonds, all bar one, then tossed the bag at Oxton’s chest. She pointed a claw at her heart. ‘Now it is time for Ana-Amari’s story. Once upon a time, there was a foolish thief-’

‘Oh, Mara’s _bollocks_, kill me.’

‘_There was a fucking foolish thief who sorely tempted her den-mother _and wisely chose to make amends_._ She took back what she stole-’

‘You’ve gotta be-’

‘And then she left town, and…’ Ana-Amari squeezed her eyes shut. The next thought hurt. ‘And she joined her den-mother in Vivec City, where they both lay low with a friend of den-mother until the bad guards were kittens with bellies full of sweet-meats. And the foolish thief,’ she spread her paws and opened her eyes wide in mock astonishment, ‘did not drown in her blood in the street.’

Oxton tipped her head back against the wall. ‘Guess I don’t have much choice, ey.’

Ana-Amari pushed back her stool and stood. ‘I am _giving_ this one a choice. Were it not for the goodness of dearly departed friend Cosades, this one’s choosing days would be behind her.’

Oxton swallowed heavily. ‘Fine.’ She tucked the bag back in her satchel, checked her magic. Working again. Splendid. She cast a healing cantrip that wiped her out once more, but _gods_ it was worth it. ‘But I’ll need somewhere to sleep til sundown.’

‘The cellar is yours. There are blankets down there. Somewhere.’ Ana-Amari had fished a hefty traveller’s bag from behind the bar and was laying out supplies. Slow, heavy thuds from the staircase. A large man guided himself down steps intended for smaller beings. He held a large fuzzy robe around his torso, hands tucked under his armpits.

‘Ana? What is all the ruckus?’ He noted the supplies and sighed audibly. ‘I see I am on double shifts for a while.’

Ana-Amari leant over to kiss his cheek. ‘Just an unexpected trip to see friend Jobasha.’ She looked pointedly at Oxton. ‘No more than a week, yes?’

Oxton shrugged theatrically, her face a mask of feigned befuddlement.

Ana-Amari ignored her. ‘There is coin for tea in the usual spot,’ she picked a stray white hair off Reinhardt’s shoulder, ‘and it is not as if the baying masses are beating down our doors. You shall survive, I should imagine.’

He pouted. ‘Aye, if you can call that living.’

‘Gods in paradise. You are soft as lambshit.’

Oxton brushed past them. ‘Sorry lads, I just remembered I’ve gotta be in a dark room, possibly forever.’

‘Careful, hairball,’ Ana-Amari stated. ‘And remember,’ she called as Oxton pulled the trapdoor over her head, ‘Jobasha’s Rare Books, Foreign Quarter. Two days. This one has a code word?’

‘Suck my dick.’ The hatch slapped shut.

* * *

The High Fane, the saying goes, has many rooms. Archcanon Tholer Saryoni prided herself on having seen them all. The Tea Room, as she and a select few _associates_ affectionately named it, she had hoped to never see again. Behind a powerful magical seal, the walls tilted in toward a point on the low ceiling, designed to trap all sound. They may as well have been in Oblivion, for all the outside world knew of its existence. Room for a table, two plain chairs, and a conversation the rest of Vvardenfell could do without.

‘I hope you have not been waiting long, Caius.’

The old imperial smiled. ‘In the greatest library this side of Cyrodil, Archcanon? Tedium would be a sin, surely.’

Saryoni clicked her fingers, and the lamps sprung to life with a warm, yellow hue. ‘Call me Tholer, for heaven’s sakes,’ she slugged the last of her tea, placed her bundle of papers beside his. ‘And I hope you finally picked up my _Sermons_, Caius, there are some powerful tracts on the virtue of clean living.’

He chuckled. ‘A little self-medication never hurt anyone important, Saryoni. Besides, it helps me _blend in_.’

‘It’s good to see you,’ she smiled. He rose from his chair. They held each other warmly, she a little taller, her firm grip on his shoulders finding them a little bonier than she remembered. ‘You’re losing your hair.’

‘Also helps me blend in. Now.’

‘Now. Shall we discuss the end of the world?’

‘I suppose.’ He produced an old coin, an imperial drake. The face was so worn it could’ve belonged the emperor’s grandfather. ‘Tails, you go first?’

‘Caius.’

It hit the table with a clink. ‘Heads. Fine.’ He collected his coin and returned it to an interior pocket, exhaling through his nose, his smile fading. ‘Word from the capital. Trouble brewing, as it does. Emperor Uriel VII grows pessimistic with age, and Vvardenfell occupies his mind.’

‘It’s about time.’

Cosades smirked. ‘Sedition before breakfast. Must be in Vivec. As my brief outlines,’ he indicated the papers, ‘He, and by ‘he’ I mean I, have heard tell of a local superstition, concerning an ancient military hero, Nerevar, of whom I suppose you know. _He shall return and unite the peoples of Vvardenfell, ashlander and settler he shall unite them_, and so on. Except,’ he shifted in his chair to flit through his papers, pushing a parchment across the table with a finger, ‘this is my _favourite_ part. A little bird told me of an intriguing prophecy. Nerevar shall be reborn as an _outlander_. Isn’t that funny? Can’t imagine it’ll please _anyone_. Colonists will have to recognise the indigenous peoples’ land rights and the tribes will have a prophesized hero who hasn’t the foggiest what an ashlander is.’

Saryoni didn’t find it funny at all. ‘I’m aware of the _apocrypha_, Caius. The Temple, and by ‘the Temple’ I mean I, have been very clear. The Lost Prophecies are heresies, ashlander falsehoods concocted to challenge the sanctity of the settled Dunmer Temple.’

‘Tholer.’

She sighed, rubbed a hand across her forehead. ‘I know. And I’ve read more prophecies than your little birds have had hot dinners, so there’s no need to show off.’

‘I’d sooner die,’ Cosades noted, retrieving the parchment. ‘But it’s going to be awfully difficult to convince the faithful that an exclusively _oral_ _culture_ has suddenly found a way to forge millenia-old written records.’

‘And who’s going to tell the faithful, Caius.’

He tapped a knuckle on the table. ‘Well, that’s what I wanted to discuss, you see. It’s not a matter of ‘going to’. We already found her.’

‘Found who.’

‘The Nerevarine.’

A long silence. Tholer eyed her old friend, very carefully. ‘Caius, it truly is lovely to see you and I certainly hope spymasters and archcanons are permitted to retire, we can play these little games all day. But really-’

‘I’m not joking.’

‘Spymaster,’ Saryoni stood, ‘it’s delightful that the Empire has decided to give a shit about our little backwater, and only a few years after the mines started turning a profit, what serendipity.’

‘Tholer, I-’

‘No, no, this is very important, shut your damned smug imperial mouth. You cannot just _find _the Nerevarine. There are trials. There are accidents of birth. There’s a whole section in the prophecies about ruddy _disease immunity_. On bad days I’m half convinced the prophecies are a grand metaphor for _he’s not coming back, get over it_. At best, you might have found some poor stooge with uncertain parents and a very certain birth-chart, and _pretend_…’

She trailed off. Her mouth felt awfully dry.

‘Caius, you fucking didn’t.’

‘It’s already in motion, Tholer.’ He looked small, of a sudden, deflated and apologetic. A wave of panic washed over Saryoni as she hadn’t felt since her acolyte days. Cosades seemed to gather his thoughts. ‘You’ve been kind to me, and in my… _relatively_ short life it’s been a privilege to know you. Power hasn’t corrupted you. One of a kind. So. Wanted to give you the best warning I could. Here,’ he tidied the remainder of the bundled papers and handed them to his friend, ‘this is everything we have on her. Likeness, criminal record, even a _frightfully_ shoddily encrypted message identifying her as an imperial spy. Think of that one as a… _last_ resort. Old dragon-fucker wouldn’t be too impressed with my indiscretion.’

‘But… this could mean civil war. The Temple is tearing itself apart as it is. And you talk about _colonists _as if they’re a cosy little union, not a dozen back-biting factions in a tinder box.’

The spymaster pushed himself up from the table. In the dim lamplight, Saryoni hadn’t noticed his walking stick.

‘People get old, Tholer. Well, humans do,’ he smiled weakly. ‘And _institutions_ get old. And at times there comes a point where one must change, or one must die. Sometimes both.’

‘How on earth are you getting out of this, Caius.’

He shrugged happily. ‘I’m not, Tholer. I’ve arranged it so everyone in the old HQ thinks I’m dead. Benefits of maintaining the appearance of dangerous habits. I’m off to find a couple of cottages somewhere scenic. Fishing and playing cards and never giving a ragged fuck about nobility ever again.’

‘You’re a terrible liar, Caius.’

He nodded, jaw slightly clenched. ‘Shame, really. I’d hoped you’d drop in from time to time. I’d grow old, you’d _stay_ old.’

‘It’s for the best. You’d be bored clueless in a week.’

‘Probably overthrow the town council.’

‘Perhaps I’d join you. I’d make a splendid mayor. I could wear a three-pointed hat.’

He barked a laugh, but swallowed hard as it faded. His eyes were glassy. ‘Well.’

‘It’s been a pleasure, Caius. Truly.’ They embraced, once more. He gathered his belongings, cast his symbol on the opposite wall to the one Saryoni had entered. The stone moved without a sound.

‘Caius?’

He turned, leaning one hand on the wall.

‘I don’t suppose you’d know where I might start looking for her.’

‘It’s a big island, Tholer, as islands go. But this I can say with certainty: you shan’t find her in Vivec City. I have arranged for a friend to train the girl in my stead. Very reliable, and I doubt even your Ordinators have heard of her.’

‘I see.’ She exhaled deeply. ‘Three blessings, Caius. Perhaps we’ll go fishing one day.’

Cosades lingered at the door a second longer, nodded, stepped out into the dark.

The door closed. Tholer Saryoni was once again alone, in a room with a bundle of papers, holding the future of an entire culture. She undid the knot and turned the first page.

‘Lena… Oxton.’ Saryoni said to the walls. ‘_Nerevarine_.’

May the Three have mercy.

* * *

Some people practice meditation. Others experiment with hallucinogens. For Lena Oxton, nothing facilitated a moment of clarity about one’s choices like being compelled to return to the scene of a crime.

So far so good, however. An uneventful sneak from the river to the High Town gate, and with no den-mother critiquing her methods, she could magically improvise without rebuke. As she turned the corner to the relevant street, she glanced up at the twin moons peeking through the clouds. Still plenty of time before dawn. She settled herself behind a large storage crate, one with a good view of Amélie LaCroix’s Fine Alchemist.

And, she noted with a silent curse, of her new security detail. Two of the Duke’s finest. She tried to remember a time she’d gone from neck-deep horseshit to freedom _and back_ with such alacrity.

The guards must’ve cost a fair penny: they stood at attention, watching the street with clear eyes. Sober police cost extra. Oxton grit her teeth at the thought of returning ill-gotten wealth to the ill-gotten wealthy. Happily, a watchful guard is, in some regards, much easier to manipulate. And besides, larceny is the mother of invention.

The alchemist’s stood at the centre of a T-junction, and from the door was a clear view in three directions. Strategically, the guards couldn’t have asked for a more defensible position, and what fool would knock over a store in High Town, never mind the same store two nights in succession?

In the fine, cobbled street, only the wind stirring the autumn leaves, only the susurrus of insects from the long grass in the hills.

A whistle as a glass bottle fizzed overhead, exploding messily against the stonework. Both men flinched and cursed. One, perhaps the superior of the two guards, recovered his composure first, and sent his junior to investigate the alley. The young man drew his sword and stalked carefully towards a stack of storage crates.

Lena Oxton watched all this from the balcony of the alchemist. As quietly as she could, she hefted the rock she’d picked up in the alley, testing its weight in her hand. Without delay, she aimed, and threw.

A dull _thud_ as the young guard pitched over in a heap. His partner rushed to him, loudly demanding the unseen assailants reveal their whereabouts. Oxton knew she wouldn’t have time to finesse this one. Get in, drop the goods, and get gone. Muttering a spell, she blinked to the other side of the balcony door.

‘Good evening.’

Oxton had barely materialized when a silken voice greeted her from a corner of the room. She had hardly registered the sound before an exquisitely sharp blade kissed the skin at her throat. A second passed, then another. She flicked her eyes around the dark room to check. As far as she could tell, she was not dead.

‘I trust that you have my diamonds.’

Oxton tried not to swallow. ‘Mhm. Bag.’

The blade arm did not relax. ‘I will take your word. And you will take mine when I say I only wish to talk. I shall remove my dagger, and you shall sit. Any sudden moves and, well, I have never missed a target twice.’

Oxton complied, carefully folding her legs beneath her, placing a hand on each knee. The routine was starting to grate on her. ‘Take it potions ain’t your only hobby than, miss.’

‘Benefits of a private education.’ Oxton could hear the smirk in her voice. ‘The time to practice a great many skills. To learn, as they say, of the world. That a great scholar may be a great fool; that a guardsman may loathe justice; and that a thief may have a strange notion of honour. _Et voilà_. I am correct. The question is,’ LaCroix ignited a small magical flame in her free hand as she stepped around to face her prey. ‘What may I do with you?’

‘Look, mate, I clearly made a serious miscalculation here, but look, I’m making amends! You’ll have your stones back, and I’ll be on my way. No harm, no foul, right?’

‘_All_ of my stones? Or simply enough to appease me?’ LaCroix reclined on a large armchair. The rumpled and chemically addled woman of the previous evening was unrecognisable. She wore a long robe, her hair in a high ponytail revealing her angular features, sharpened by the cool light dancing in her palm. ‘Your silence tells me that you owe me a debt.’

‘What? No! I was just – look. Okay, I don’t expect you to think favourably of me-’

A delighted scoff from the woman in the chair. ‘_Wise_.’

‘_But_, I did come back. And I reckon I speak as one manner of professional to another, eh?’

LaCroix rolled her eyes. ‘You test my patience. _Un_wise. All the world knows the Balmora Thieves’ Guild was raided months ago. Unless you plan to join the first Guild operating entirely behind bars, you are a freelancer, and under the protection of no-one. And _my_ profession, as you can plainly see, entails merely the alchemical arts.’

‘Oh, plainly. And I’m the King of Elsweyr.’

‘In actuality the Khajiit are governed by a spiritual leader called a Mane, quite fascinating. _But_. To business. You have cost me a great deal of money. I hold your liberty in my hand. If the guards wrap you in chains I have neither. And so, you will serve me.’

Oxton felt a weight in her guts. Masters on top of masters on top of masters. ‘I’m acquainted with the notion, miss. And what kind of servicing is it you fancy?’

The alchemist leaned forward in her chair, blade idle in one hand, fire blazing in the other. Her smile could cut glass. Oxton braced herself for years of hard labour, inescapable debt, a one-way ticket to the cells.

‘You will take me with you.’

Oxton blinked.

‘You fucking _what_?’

LaCroix tossed the magical flame into the fireplace, where it licked hungrily around the kindling. ‘You have seen what I can do, yes?’

Oxton couldn’t deny _that_. She nodded limply.

‘My father and I have an arrangement. I take care of his business affairs on this woebegotten island and in return, I do not marry some worthless Lord Piss-the-Bed and am free to pursue,’ she paused and gave her captive a meaningful look, ‘my _own_ affairs. Which is where you come in.’

‘Oh, bully. You wanna start a knitting circle? I’ve been working on my crochet.’

‘You think you are amusing. I like that.’ She stood and glanced out the window. A guard was slumped at the side of the road, his colleague, no doubt, fetching reinforcements. LaCroix had watched the whole fray, of course. Impressive skills, however unpolished. ‘If you are returning your spoils to me then you do not plan to remain in town. I have arranged for the guards to mind the shop for a spell, and it pleases me to accompany you on your,’ she gestured in the air, searching for the word, ‘_adventures_.’

Oxton cocked her head, exhausted. ‘I’m not a knight fucking errant, mate. Petty thieves aren’t the _adventuring _sort. Unless your governess told you tales about washing horseshit out of your smalls.’

She pouted impassively. ‘_Well_. We shall see. The guards will return presently, I dare say. You will meet me at the silt strider outside the walls before the moons meet the horizon. Should you fail to keep this arrangement, it shall be your last. Do we have an understanding?’

‘Listen, miss, you seem like a reasonable lady-’

In a trice, without even appearing to move, Oxton’s once again felt LaCroix’s steel at her throat.

‘You are quite wrong, my dear. I am Amélie Guillard LaCroix of Wayrest, and the few souls foolish enough to defy me may no longer advise you on how unreasonable I can be.’

From downstairs, a thudding at the door. Distantly, Oxton could hear the inquiring voices of the returning guardsmen. She glanced back at her new partner in crime. ‘Guess it’s a deal.’

LaCroix withdrew her blade with a smirk. ‘Wise once more.’ She turned toward the stairs. ‘_By the gods, what is the meaning of this?_’, she yelled, ‘_have you _any idea_ of the time_?’

‘See you soon, love,’ Oxton exhaled, readying a teleportation spell.

‘You had better,’ LaCroix confirmed, carefully dishevelling her hair, suddenly appearing for all the world as if recently awoken from blissful slumber.

In a blink, Oxton was on the roof, then next door’s roof, then out into the chill Balmora air.

None of this was going to plan.


	3. The Hand You're Dealt

A silt strider is an odd beast, even in as fundamentally odd a district as Vvardenfell. Tall as a house and with no natural predators, their placidity made domestication by ancient Dunmer caravaners a simple, mutually beneficial affair. In recent years, however, as colonists arrived en masse, and as goods and resources changed hands with increasing velocity, the demand for haulage forced many elderly and adolescent striders into active service. To the surprise and alarm of their imperial commanders, the strider population plummeted, working caravans became rare and expensive, and commoners hitching a cheap ride to the next trading hub became a thing of the past. Lena Oxton, leaning nonchalantly against the wall by the strider-port, was only aware of the lattermost of these conditions, and cursed it appropriately.

_Bloody price-gouging caravaners._

Oxton was not one for structural analysis. But you must forgive me, friend, I do digress. She was waiting for a dangerous new associate, under duress and cover of darkness, and I promised a yarn, not some dry-as-dust economic theory. Perhaps my glass needs refilling.

‘Beautiful creatures, are they not?’

Oxton’s soul almost departed her body. Even in a state of heightened alertness, she hadn’t heard LaCroix’s footsteps. She swiftly composed herself.

‘Hm! _Bit_ freaky. Cutting around on a giant bug? Cheers, but no cheers. What’s wrong with a horse and cart?’

‘And how many horses have you seen on the island? Or paved roads for that matter?’ LaCroix asked, adjusting her travelling hood. Oxton glanced covetously at her sturdy leather boots, fur-lined trousers and jacket, dyed a purple so dark it seemed to draw light into itself. Out of the moonlight, she would be no more detectable than a shadow.

‘S’pose. Nice duds.’

For a moment, LaCroix gave her a blank look. ‘Oh, my travelling gear. I did not wish to attract undue attention.’

Oxton cackled. ‘Right you are, love, what could be less conspicuous than a jacket worth a month’s wages?’

LaCroix turned to face her new travelling companion, not _irritated_, exactly, but just a hair shy of amused. She held up two fingers. ‘There are two kinds of inconspicuous. One: you do not see. I believe this is your preference.’

Oxton nodded with a shrug. ‘All you need if you know how.’

LaCroix raised an eyebrow. ‘Two: you see, but you know better than to look again.’

She let the silence hang in the air a second. Oxton tried to figure out if she was being condescending, or if she was merely tall and posh.

‘That’s very good, sweetness. Got any more tidbits for an aspiring thief? Only I just got out of thief school yesterday and golly gosh I don’t rightly know me probe from me elbow.’

LaCroix narrowed her eyes and pitched her rucksack at Oxton’s feet. ‘You forget our arrangement so quickly.’

‘Yeah, yeah, you’re the boss.’ Oxton realised the truth of it as the words left her mouth. She imagined her homicidal den mother greeting her new friend to their secret hideout.

Chin up, she thought, we might get shivved by bandits while we sleep. She hoisted LaCroix’s pack over her shoulders. _Ooft_. Oxton had many skills, but heavy lifting was not among them. She closed her eyes and uttered a small spell. Faint purple light surrounded the bag, now no heavier than an apple.

‘Full of tricks.’ LaCroix smiled. ‘Perhaps this _shall_ be amusing. Now tell me,’ she began striding away from the city gates, her leather boots barely raising a sound from the trampled earth, ‘Where are you taking me?’

Oxton quickened her pace to match the taller woman’s gait. ‘Vivec City. Foreign Quarter. Tell you the rest when we get there.’

‘Fine.’ LaCroix looked at the stars. Whatever they told her, she accepted without comment. ‘I have business with the proprietor of the Halfway Tavern in Pelagiad village. We can be there by sundown, take lodgings, reach Vivec the following day.’

‘You’re _working_? Thought you said this was an adventure, mate.’

LaCroix pondered this. ‘Business can be adventurous,’ she posited.

‘Bollocks. Where’s the fun in getting paid honestly?’

LaCroix allowed herself a small smile. ‘I never said _honestly_.’ She nodded down the cattle-path that followed the river away from Balmora. ‘We follow this to the bridge, then straight through the hills.’

Oxton grunted her assent. She could hardly suggest an alternative. As they walked, LaCroix glanced sideways at her diminutive companion.

Oxton felt her gaze. ‘Penny for your thoughts, love.’

‘They are worth more than that.’ They walked on for a while through the morning stillness, the path rising and falling as the land demanded: it was not the well-worn roads used by the emperor’s legions, or the trade caravans. Perhaps Oxton was only imagining the shouts and heavy footsteps of the guards growing distant, hushed out by the steady rush of the Odai at their side, only a few feet from the cattle-path. She instantly remembered the various knives, claws and threats pointed her way recently. Oxton could practically _hear_ her shoulders tensing. One of those knives was mere feet away.

‘So,’ spoke the knife-bearer.

‘So,’ Oxton echoed.

‘How long have you been thieving.’

Oxton looked at her employer-slash-partner-slash-captor, smiled in befuddlement, cracked into a laugh, and finally buckled in two, convulsing in a small fit of mirth. She noticed LaCroix’s hand drift instinctively towards her scabbard and raised a conciliatory hand. ‘Sorry! Sorry, fucking _Julianos_ I wasn’t expecting that.’

LaCroix’s scowl was thunderous.

‘Okayokayokay, _sorry_. It’s just – y’know, you’ve _sort of_ kidnapped me and the last time I heard a line like that was from the last fool who courted my fine arse.’

LaCroix kept walking. ‘It is odd,’ she threw over her shoulder, ‘to apologize, and then make things worse.’

‘That’s the ol’ Oxton charm,’ she countered, trotting back up to speed.

‘I have no doubt you think so.’

The terrain rose gently but persistently away from the riverbanks. In the distance, Oxton could see a bridge made, somewhat ingeniously, of planks and rope. Probably safe, but she was glad of the feather-spell she’d cast on LaCroix’s pack.

She sighed deeply.

‘Bout nineteen years.’

‘Eh?’ LaCroix didn’t break stride.

‘Thieving. Been at it since I was a little’un. Grew up in an orphanage in High Rock, y’see, and Akatosh knows we didn’t have two onions to rub together most days. So, one night, I thought, _right, Oxton_-’

‘Gods preserve me. I didn’t ask for your damned life story.’

‘But you-’

‘_You will tell me_ of your skills, so I may consider how to deploy them with my…’ she cast about for the fittest word, ‘associate.’

Oxton’s eyes lit up. She emitted a sound like a kettle boiling.

‘You will cease that noise immediately.’

‘We’re planning a _caper_?’

LaCroix’s face scrunched with profound distaste. ‘Nothing of the sort. I have never _capered_ in my life. And if you make me regret a single step on this voyage I will not hesitate to hand you over to the authorities. Gods beneath, I might dispatch you myself and save the paperwork.’

Oxton tightened her smile and kept her true thoughts to herself. ‘Okay. Well, I’m an accomplished breaker – as you’ve seen – actor, as you’ve _very much seen_’ – she affected a plummy accent, which brought a studious lack of response from LaCroix – ‘and I have, somewhat brilliantly, invented my own branch of the magical thieving arts, _to whit_, making stuff and myself _quite_ disappear.’

They reached the bridge. For the first time since they left Balmora, LaCroix turned to face her. The hill’s pinnacle gave a view of the sun inching above the horizon. For a second, Oxton thought of the mainland port she’d left those weeks ago. The college and her discreet expulsion. The orphanage. This strange island full of strangers. And perhaps the strangest of all, this lanky aristo with funny notions about going on a jolly. LaCroix blocked entry to the narrow bridge with an arm.

‘You have a choice, Lena Oxton. You behave like a professional, you make me some money, we reach Vivec, our business is concluded.’

The hilltop was exposed to the elements, and Oxton heard the bridge’s ropework creak and strain. She peeked over the edge, to where the Odai howled, a rage of white against the rocks.

‘_Or_, you continue to act the clown, and you wonder to yourself: why didn’t I jump when I had the chance. Clear?’

Oxton swallowed. ‘Crystal.’

LaCroix smiled, showing, briefly, her perfect teeth. Oxton hadn’t seen this particular expression before, and didn’t care to again. ‘Good,’ LaCroix smirked, raising her arm and ushering Oxton across the abyss, ‘now, let us get to our _business_.’

Oxton placed one foot on the wet board, and began to cross.

* * *

The day passed largely in silence. Though Oxton knew nothing of Vvardenfell bar the shortest route from the docks to Balmora, she got the distinct impression they were taking the back roads. The farmsteads and fishing shacks were scattered and tumbledown, their path little more than trodden grass. More than once, she could’ve sworn there were faces squinting warily from behind the shutters. Dunmer folk are long-lived, and hamlets like these might go years without a new face, despite the Empire's rapid expansion elsewhere on the island.

Oxton absorbed as much as possible, regardless. She was no outdoorsman, but in straitened circumstances one catches as one can. That cave, for instance, might serve as a hideout one day, and a sufficiently dense forest can hide a small army, let alone a single thief with her wits about her. The more she observed, the more convinced she became that, given the chance to embark on a career in smuggling, the marshy, sparsely populated woods of south-west Vvardenfell would make a fine headquarters. She made a mental note to discuss it with Ana-Amari, and surprised herself to think fondly of the possibility.

The afternoon came swiftly, and the autumn air seemed reluctant to hold the midday heat for long. Judging from the slight quickening of LaCroix’s step, Oxton guessed they were rapidly approaching their destination. Her feet complained bitterly, pins and needles running across her arches; the feather spell was running low, and she hardly had the magicka to cast it in the first place. Oxton was quite preoccupied, then, when she met LaCroix’s stern arm blocking her path. She walked straight into it, emptying her lungs of breath.

‘_FACK_ ME, wh-’

LaCroix’s hand clamped over Oxton’s mouth. Two fingers pointed at her eyes, then at a spot a hundred yards down the road.

Four men, none of whom were concerned about concealing their weapons.

LaCroix and Oxton took shelter in a clump of dense bushes, some paces back from the road. LaCroix spoke first, a calm, purposeful whisper.

‘Bandits. I would kill them all where they stand, but-’

‘Paperwork.’

‘Ouais.’

‘Righto.’ Oxton surveyed the scene. ‘Could cut through the woods.’

LaCroix shook her head. ‘That could add hours to the journey, and if I were them, I would have a second crew waiting for precisely such an eventuality.’

‘So.’ Oxton squeezed her eyes shut. ‘We wanna non-lethally pass four mighty lethal-looking men. We’re just gunna stroll right up to ‘em and appeal to their better natures.’

‘Not ‘we’.’

‘You whHUH-’

With remarkable force, Oxton felt herself crash through the undergrowth and onto the path, barely keeping her feet. The noise had drawn the attention of the men. Oxton gathered herself quickly, brushing the leaf litter off her breeches and fixing her pack, walking as if it were much heavier than it was. _Stendarr’s codpiece, if I get out of this alive…_

The men were far enough away for her to complete the thought. What could she possibly do to LaCroix? _If I get out of this alive you won’t see me for dust, cheeri-fucking-bye_. The lack of catharsis was, itself, a blessed relief. _If I get out of this alive I promise to make better life choices_. When she looked up and saw two men with axes blocking her path, she didn’t have to pretend to snap out of deep thought.

‘OH hullo, lads! How’s the day treating you? Just off to Pelagiad, duty calls, eh.’

The smaller of the two grunted. ‘What’s in the bag?’

‘Oh, this?’ The larger man, an orc, judging by the tusks, circled around behind Oxton. The other pair had glanced up from their game of… dice? knuckles?… and decided she was, at most, a two-man job. _Lucky me_, she thought. ‘Just some, uh, reagents, salves, foot lotions, that sorta bumf.’

‘Show us,’ said the larger one.

‘Curiosity’s always flattering, lads, but I really must be off, the old gaffer’ll have me balls if I’m not at the Halfway by sundown.’ _That_ much was true.

The smaller man held up a palm. ‘We’re from the Fort, miss. Been smugglers operating in the area, can’t be too careful. Just a routine check, then you’ll be on your way.’

He might’ve been more convincing had one of the game-players not snorted derisively.

Oxton pitched the pack at his feet. She guessed she’d enough magicka to blink herself away, but without the bag she’d have LaCroix to deal with, presuming she hadn’t already made herself scarce. She realised, then, that she hadn’t the faintest idea what really _was_ in the thing. She took a few steps backward, hands raised.

‘Alright, but like I say, guv, I don’t get to Pelagiad sharpish it’s your funeral.’

‘Don’t go giving him ideas,’ smirked the smaller man, jerking his head toward the orc, who seemed, eventually, to see the levity. Oxton suspected he got that a lot. The big fella seemed to relax, fitting his axe in its harness across his back. He sauntered round over the shoulder of his partner, who was unfastening the straps on the bag.

‘_Talos_, you weren’t joking about that alchemy garbage. What in oblivion is that _smell_,’ he said, crinkling his nose. He removed a few unlabelled bottles, some nondescript cloth: gauze maybe, maybe bandages. The next article he unfolded in his hands. A fine green tunic, the lacing dyed with gold, a long, wine-dark stain running from shoulder to waist. He looked at the garment, then at Oxton, brow creased. The orc stood, slowly.

The smaller man dropped the tunic. Gingerly, he lifted something else inside the pack. He paled suddenly, stood and stepped away from it, as if the bag might bite him.

He pointed at Oxton, breathing heavily. ‘You one of them cultists?!’

Oxton’s mind raced. ‘I’m – mate, I’m just a messenger, I don’t-’

The orc peered into the bag, gave Oxton a straight look, and started refilling the pack, carefully folding the tunic, wrapping the glassware in the strips of cloth, strapping it tightly shut.

He then hurled it as far as he could in the direction of Pelagiad, without a word. Neither he nor the smaller man spoke, the two gamblers looked from one to the other, agitated but silent.

Oxton made a move toward the long grass where the pack had come to a stop. She looked at the orc. ‘What-’

‘A little advice, young one. Careful,’ he spoke, gentleness in his voice, ‘who you work for.’

Minutes later, when Oxton had recovered her cargo, and approached a turn in the road that would take her out of the men’s eyeline, she glanced backward. He was still watching.

* * *

Oxton followed her feet further into the woods. Either LaCroix had abandoned her, and she had nowhere to go, or she was watching her from a safe distance, and need go no further. Either way, she dropped to her haunches and sated her curiosity. She undid the buckles and flipped open the cover. She checked on the bottles. Unharmed. Either enchanted or just extremely well-made, and very expensive either way. Oxton didn’t have a fight-or-flight response so much as an opportunism gauge: how likely is death? How likely is payment?

As she removed the bloodstained tunic, those questions were swiftly answered.

‘You did well,’ came a voice from the side of the road. Oxton couldn’t say whether LaCroix had been there the entire time, had stepped silently out of the brush, had mystically materialised from a bloody pocket dimension. Whatever the case, there she was, arms crossed, leaning louchely against a tree. ‘You had everything in hand, so to speak.’ LaCroix smiled, amused by her own wit.

Inside the bag, as plain, and as heavy, and as large as life, was a mummified left hand, severed neatly at the wrist. Judging by the smell of preservative oils, it was fresh.

Oxton felt like she aged a year in a second. ‘You’re with the brotherhood.’

LaCroix shrugged, nonplussed. ‘I prefer ‘The Assassin’s Guild’. More… inclusive.’

Oxton dropped to the ground, chuckling as she felt herself go slightly unhinged. ‘Me old gran always swore she was getting held back in her murdering career.’ She stared into space for a long second, trying to decide which thread needed pulling first. ‘Who’s this for?’

‘Not you, if that is what is upsetting you so.’

That particular possibility hadn’t crossed Oxton’s mind. ‘Jolly decent of you. And you were watching the whole thing, too. A regular guardian angel.’

LaCroix pushed herself upright and walked towards Oxton. ‘Let us not misunderstand each other. You live at my pleasure, until your debt is paid.’ She squatted down beside her travelling companion. ‘Or until you lie in a ditch.’ She stood and walked on down the path.

‘What were you gunna do if they’d scrubbed me?’ Oxton shouted after her.

LaCroix stopped, and half-turned. ‘Found a new hand, I suppose.’

Oxton followed her, several strides behind, where she could keep an eye on her. She didn’t turn back.

* * *

They arrived in Pelagiad shortly before nightfall. The land rights to the village had been granted to retired Imperial soldiers some decades earlier; they soon planted their farms, established a tavern and a small wholesaler. Business followed hot on their tails, however, and the village’s situation, precisely one day’s travel from both Balmora and Vivec, made it too precious to waste on mere veterans. Despite an organised resistance, they were bought out, and the village Oxton and LaCroix entered was dominated by a heavy-duty military fort, like a child wearing their parent’s helmet.

The Halfway Tavern was a revenant of the veterans’ nostalgia, a little chunk of Cyrodilic architecture in the untamed hinterlands, and the only certified public house for miles around. By the time Oxton made it to the heavy oaken door, she felt as if she were dragging her legs through mud, her feet all but numb. LaCroix breezed past her, fresh as a daisy. Oxton wonderered what kind of magical pick-me-ups money like hers could buy. Probably only slept out of a sense of decorum.

The inside of the tavern, though, was a blessing. The thick glass and stone walls held the warmth from the hearth, the room full of woodsmoke and bready heat that washed over Oxton like a hot bath. She reflected that it might be the closest thing she got to a hot bath. LaCroix had swept her way to the bar, quite ignoring the handful of travellers already propping it up. She was speaking to an austere Dunmer with fine eyebrows and a quilted doublet. Oxton found a corner table by the stairs and surveyed the room.

The sound of conversation bounced around the pub’s hard furnishings, an occasional round of laughter or song rising over the hubbub, like lumps of bread in a thick bowl of soup. By Arkay she was hungry. In the far corner, a card game caught her eye. Judging by the turnover of players at the last hand, it was informal, come-all-ye. The only players to remain seated throughout were a Khajiit in a long plain cowl, and a young Dunmer in a style of dress Oxton hadn’t seen before, both with a substantial stack of coin before them. The Dunmer wore a kind of hardened leather cuirass over a linen shirt. The cuirass was painted all over with intricate swirling patterns, maybe a constellation, maybe an ocean. New players joined the table, the game continued.

She became aware of clicking fingers. Glancing toward the bar, she saw she was being summoned, like a dog. She made a _who me_ face until LaCroix’s expression darkened, then picked her way toward her, apologising to several patrons as she wove through their parties.

‘Mistress Ramothran has a room. Bring my bag.’

The stately landlady swept past where Oxton had just been sitting. She blinked, exhausted. She picked her way apologetically through a series of conversations she had interrupted moments ago. At the top of the steep wooden stairs, at the end of the hall, Ramothran unlocked a large door.

Had she not seen the opulent standards to which LaCroix was accustomed, she might have been impressed. A four-poster bed, an armoire and bureau in the same ornate fashion, and a small fireplace, in which Ramothran had already kindled a small, feisty blaze. The landlady nodded to them both as she walked backward out of the room, pulling the door shut behind her.

Oxton noticed a slight problem. There was only one bed.

‘Uh, Miss LaCroix?’

LaCroix was already seated on the mattress, neatly discarding her walking boots with barely a sigh. ‘Mm?’

‘Just got a small inquiry about the, um, sleeping arrangements.’

She rose to her feet and walked to where Oxton stood by the door. She took the heavy pack out of her hand, looming into her personal space. ‘I don’t see a problem.’ She spoke low and soft, the sound of voices beneath them a murmuration, a world away.

‘Oh! Well, that’s fine. Great.’ Oxton’s throat felt dry. ‘I’ll just-’

LaCroix leaned in close. For the first time on their travels, Oxton could smell her perfume. Deep notes of fruit and wine, the day’s road-sweat just a hair underneath it all.

‘You will sleep in the stable,’ she whispered. ‘Get out of my room.’

Perhaps Oxton’s mind was playing self-defensive tricks, but she could have sworn there was the shadow of a smile in her eyes as she said it. LaCroix stepped nonchalantly back to the armoire, removing her jacket. She turned. She made a shooing motion with a flick of her hand.

As Oxton stepped outside the door she made a new curse with every footstep as she headed back to the taproom. Curse that floorboard. Curse that potted fern. Curse that tasteful wall-hanging. Out through the thick glass on the staircase window, a chill was descending. She could see clouds of breath from the pack guars huddled together in the wooden hutch out back. Inside, there was a fire and body heat. And, she remembered as she reached the bar proper, quite a promising game of cards. Her empty stomach protested sadly.

_Good point_. She made her way through the gradually thinning crowd to bar, and studied the miserable assembly of coins in her pouch. _Hm_.

‘Mistress Ramothran?’ The barkeep turned to her. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got any leftovers or owt…’

Ramothran looked at the small coins in Oxton’s palm, her travel-stained outfit. Her haughty demeanour dropped for a second. She nodded towards the stairs. ‘New job, is it?’

‘Something like that,’ Oxton shrugged.

Ramothran closed Oxton’s palm, the coins still inside. ‘Sure we can spare a bowl of summat hot, petal.’

Moments later, Oxton was carrying a wooden bowl, brimming with root vegetables, a chunk of soft bread merrily absorbing the broth. She ferried it over to the card game, perched herself on a free stool.

The Dunmer glanced across at her, not quite warily. ‘Two drakes buy-in, outlander,’ he stated. His voice was a deep rasp, as though he’d smoked a pipe since childhood.

‘Who says I’m an outlander?’ Oxton lobbed back, through a mouthful of yams.

The Khajiit laughed warmly, slapping the Dunmer’s arm. ‘You cannot see the family resemblance, Yakum?’ Oxton wasn’t sure if it was his name or a term of endearment, but filed it away regardless. ‘Here,’ the Khajiit took a couple of coins from one of her stacks and pitched them toward Oxton, ‘if this one wins, this one splits her winnings with me. If this one loses,’ she shared a look with Yakum, ‘_no skin off my nose_, as you say.’

‘That’s mighty gracious of you, uh…’

‘Ahnassi. It is all for love of the game...’

‘Oxton.’

‘It’s your coin, Nas,’ Yakum grumbled, and dealt her in.

Oxton played slowly and cautiously, holding her coins tightly, building a foothold in the game as other punters came and left. The night wore on, the draft from the door bit harder with every soul departing into the night. Soon, only the three of them remained in the game, and Oxton’s pile matched that of her rivals.

‘_Mysticism_, Oxton. This one has not invented a damned new school of magic. Moving things with mind and not body: this one is describing _mysticism_.’

Yakum smiled tightly as Oxton pulled in yet another pot. She was too delighted to be magnanimous. ‘Yeah, well, looks like _this one’s_ got the best _mind_ at this table,’ she beamed.

‘Coulda been an easy night, Nas.’ Yakum’s arms were folded tight.

‘And where is the fun in that?’ Her smile bore all her sharpest teeth. ‘One last hand?’

He grunted the affirmative. Ahnassi dealt. As the cards turned, and the bets increased, Oxton finally threw caution to the wind and pushed her stack into the middle of the table. Ahnassi followed suit, followed, reluctantly, by Yakum. They showed their hands.

Oxton took the pot by a hair’s breadth. She yelped for joy and punched the air. Yakum pushed back his stool in a small fury. Ahnassi simply smiled.

‘Remember our deal, smooth skin.’

She did remember. She looked at the small heap of drakes. A hundred, if it was a penny. She rubbed her jaw. ‘Tell you what, lads. I’ll take thirty: that’ll cover my debts at the bar and do for travel tomorrow and a bath in Vivec. You take the rest. Deal?’

Yakum looked at her askance. ‘That is not the rules.’

‘Rules shmules! Kindness is like blood, only good if it keeps moving, innit. And look, you played well, but it’s a game of chance at the end of the day. Been a pleasure.’ She extended her hand to him to shake. He took it with a grimace. He glanced down at her hand. His grip suddenly tightened.

‘Oh, uh, bit of a squeeze you got there, boss.’

‘This ring…’ he muttered, almost to himself. He looked at her, somewhere between fury and… fear? ‘Where you get it?’

Ahnassi moved to calm him, spoke a few words in a language Oxton didn’t understand, but he held up a palm. ‘The _outlander_,’ he spat the word, ‘has story to tell.’

‘This thing?’ Oxton had quite forgotten the ring the kindly stranger had dropped in Balmora. She saw it now, as if for the first time. The engravings were beautiful, a crescent moon whorled around a star.

The style was awfully similar to the man’s decorated cuirass. Her stomach dropped.

‘Oh shit, mate, is it yours? Look, I just found it on the street, you can have it back.’ She tried, for the first time, to remove it. It didn’t budge an inch. ‘What the bollocking…’

‘You _mock_ me?’ Yakum growled. The handful of patrons were now quite focused on the disturbance. The landlady began to move toward them.

‘Now Yakum,’ Ramothran said soothingly, ‘this has to stop. Every time you lose a brass penny-’

‘No! _Outlander_ is a thief, or a… a…’ he trailed off and said a few words in the same language Oxton hadn’t recognised before. He closed his eyes, took a long breath and sat down, Ahnassi’s hand soothing his shoulder.

‘I apologise, outlander,’ he said, mostly to the landlady, who moved on with her business. He met Oxton’s gaze, calm now, unwavering. ‘You cannot _find_ this thing. It is not discarded, lost, made in workshop. It is _given_. Tell me who gave you.’

Oxton rubbed her hand where the man had gripped it, idly failing to move the ring. She thought back to what seemed like the least striking detail of the previous day. ‘There was a woman. I didn’t see her face, but she helped me get home to my… friends.’

His ears pricked up. ‘A woman. What else.’

‘I don’t know! She had a… blue-green dress.’

Yakum conferred with Ahnassi again. Ahnassi nodded, slowly. He turned back to Oxton, his face a mask. ‘Do not go to Vivec. Do not talk to Temple.’ He produced a parchment from his pack and turned it to the blank side, started drawing. ‘Follow this. Find Nibani Maesa, wise woman of ashlanders, to the north. Tell her what you tell me.’ He pushed a detailed map into Oxton’s hands. The fight seemed to leave him then. He stood and walked unceremoniously into the night. Ahnassi gathered their gold into a pouch and hurried after him. Oxton was left at the table.

She stood and wandered hazily to the bar, where she paid for her food and, after some negotiation with Ramothran, wrangled a place to roll out a bed mat in the cellar, a rather warmer one than the club on the South Wall. As the last voices moved out into the night and silence fell on the Halfway Tavern, Oxton studied closely the ring on her finger, the metalwork, the strange symbol. Utterly exhausted, she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

The same time, a day’s travel away. The offices of the High Fane, Vivec City. Tholer Saryoni has rested her head on her arms at her desk. She only intended to rest her eyes, but has fallen quite away into the deep recesses of dream.

She finds herself in a cavern. Though not the cave-diving sort, she recognises the fungus from her beginners’ alchemy training. Luminous Russula, squat and brown; Violet Coprinus, glow at sundown. Hypha Facia, round and green; Bungler’s Bane, on trees are seen.

There, further inside. A pool of water so clear it looks like air. A beam of light strikes it from the ceiling, shining blue-green in the dark of the cave. Saryoni finds she cannot look up to find the light’s origin. She cannot look away. There is a figure in the water. There is a figure standing on the surface of the water. The figure is so beautiful there are tears in Saryoni’s eyes.

She has a message for Saryoni, though Saryoni serves the false gods of the Temple. Saryoni finds she cannot respond to this blasphemy. The figure smiles at her attempt. The figure is speaking. Her mouth does not move.

Listen well, the figure says. I have two servants, the figure says. One will hide from you, but find you. One you have hidden from, you will find. You are not my servant, but you will serve. Though you curse me, I bless you. Though you curse my servants, I bless you. Under moon and star, you are thrice-blessed. Now, my good and faithful servant

wake

Archcanon Tholer Saryoni snaps her head from her desk, tears streaking her face. She drags the sleeve of her gown across her cheeks and grasps in the dark for a quill, desperate to record the dream before it dissolves into the cold night air. She looks down at what she has written.

She covers her mouth with a hand. She stands and walks to the antechamber, where Acolyte Falavel is sleeping. She wakes him and gives him instructions. He is puzzled, but obeys. Saryoni returns to her office, begins to pack her bags, takes up the traveling gear she has not worn since her days of study and pilgrimage. She is going on a journey.

She is going to find Nibani Maesa, wise-woman of the northern ashlander tribes.

She is going to find her mother.


	4. Ships in the Night

In the space between sleep and wakefulness, the mind behaves oddly, like light in stained glass, like time in a room without windows. Even in a world such as ours, of gods and demons, immortal sorcerers and bloodthirsty warlords, dream is a realm without dominion, the last redoubt where mortals touch the divine, free of their earthly masters. A habitual literalist, Lena Oxton had never given it much notice, populated as it was by what passed through the veil with her: winged prison guards, royal courtiers with seven mouths and no eyes, eating the world.

Tonight, however, there is peace. She is underground. A sewer, maybe? A trail of water flows past her feet into a central chamber, where a hole in the ceiling picks out an unnaturally clear pool of water. Someone is there. Oxton reflexively flattens herself against the side of the passage, holds her breath and listens. Water dripping from the roof. Her shallow breathing.

Lena Oxton, speaks a voice. Why do you hide from me? The voice appears in Oxton’s mind clear as a bell. In the dank cave, it makes no echo. There is, unmistakeably, a smile in the voice.

The voice has a message for Oxton, servant to no master, servant to many masters. 

Oxton is terrified. She fights to move her hands to her satchel, but suddenly it is like moving through mud. She cannot find her satchel, her dagger, her potions, she cannot feel her magical connection. She is alone. She cannot breathe.

So be it, says the voice. Until we meet again

wake

Lena Oxton had a silver blade in her hand before she could remember where she was or why. Her breath came in gasps and her hand was shaking.

In the darkness, she spotted Amélie LaCroix perched on top of an ale cask like a bad dream, one leg crossed over the other, apparently amused. Oxton considered herself an incisive judge of character – it was a point of pride, almost a party trick, to have any new acquaintance crying with laughter before they parted ways. In this case, she might as well crack wise with a daedroth. She exhaled and dropped her weapon, tried to make her surroundings make sense as the last images of dream left her, echoes of impressions of blue. She grabbed her shirt and slipped it on. ‘You’re a bit of a creep, you know that?’

LaCroix looked impassive. ‘Words are nothing,’ she said absently, as if reading a plaque in a chapel. ‘Only action matters. If I was your enemy, for instance, you would be quite dead.’

Oxton was upright now, tightening her belt. ‘Mate, not trying to be funny, but have you ever had, like, a friend?’

Her expression didn’t change. ‘Have you?’

‘Obviously.’

LaCroix jutted her jaw slightly. ‘_Obviously_,’ she repeated.

Oxton’s brow creased as she fastened her travelling shoes. She felt like the butt of some private joke. She suddenly noticed the high windows in the cellar, and that, in the world beyond the tavern walls, there was no more daylight than when she went to sleep. ‘What time d’you call this, anyway?’

LaCroix finally dropped down off the barrel, her feet making no more noise than a cat’s. ‘Two hours before dawn, at least.’

‘And we’re setting off? Thought you said Vivec was only a day’s hike. Could’ve waited for breakfast.’

‘No. Gather your things. You will steal for me, and then we leave before the other guests awaken.’

‘Oh.’ Oxton was not exactly disappointed. ‘Well, lead on, chief.’

Upstairs, moments later, the taproom looked unnatural in the darkness, like a mock-up of itself. LaCroix spoke in a low whisper. ‘The woman in the room next to mine has a belt. I want it.’

Oxton gave a puzzled look, dashed off some signals in thieves’ cant. _Easier ways to go shopping_.

LaCroix narrowed her eyes. Oxton raised her palms in placation. ‘The belt is an artefact of extraordinary value. The previous owner has been resident here for some time, posing as a… merchant, or a healer, or somesuch. A friend has promised to pay me well for it. I could _persuade_ this merchant to part with it, but alas, she places a magical lock on the door. And here you are,’ she chucked Oxton under the chin, ‘my magical key.’

Oxton made as unimpressed an expression as she dared. _This door?_, she signed. LaCroix nodded and leaned back against the wall opposite, calmly keeping watch on the corridor.

With at least half a night’s rest under her belt, Oxton readied her magic to blink across the threshold. In a flash of lilac, she was gone. LaCroix folded her arms, and waited.

Oxton opened her eyes in the middle of a room identical to LaCroix’s, perhaps a little smaller. The curtains on the bed were pulled, and Oxton took the split-second decision to cast a muffle spell. Rather draining, but guaranteed to keep a slumberer slumbering. Now. If I was a belt, where would I be?

She stepped carefully to the armoire. Inside the main chamber, a few shirts, a robe, boots stowed neatly underneath. Nothing suggesting a wealthy trader, let alone one in possession of extravagant relics. She checked the drawer underneath the main compartment. Stockings, smallclothes. A small, leather-bound journal. More in curiosity than expectation, she opened it.

Sure enough, a small table of revenues and expenses. She flicked through the pages quickly with a thumb. Had LaCroix got the wrong end of the stick? Worse, was it some kind of test? As she reached the final page, the small, neat handwriting was replaced with a frantic scrawl. At the top of the page were the words ‘ALL CRIES ARE WAKING!’ in huge letters, and the lines of what appeared to be a poem. The last few stanzas caught her eye, the letters irregularly sized and spaced, as if written with the author’s non-dominant hand.

He Knows the Names and the Naming!

He Knows the Wait and the Waiting!

He Enters every Star and Moon!

He Shines through their Shadows!

One Shape, One Spelling!

One Wraith, One Casting!

From Darkness, He is Armed!

From Light, He is Warded!

I see you with MY EYE!

And all is SILENCE!

I Wake! I Remember!

LORD! 

The book dropped from her trembling hand, hitting the floor soundlessly. Oxton puffed her cheeks and gave thanks for her magical instincts. As she reached to pick it up, she noticed a scrap of parchment had come loose from the rest of the journal, tucked in behind the fly-leaf. She removed it, gingerly.

On the page was a stylised left hand, in black ink, severed at the wrist. In the corner, in elegant handwriting: _Hearthfire, 3E427, Amélie Guillard LaCroix_.

Oxton swallowed hard as bile rose in her throat. She thought back to when she’d blinked into the room, dread rising, a chill wrapping its fist around her heart, like stepping barefoot into a river in winter. Had it been quiet, or silent?

She forced her feet to move to the four-poster bed.

Hand on the curtain rail, she took as deep a breath as she could manage, and gently pulled.

Face frozen in agony. Blood dried around the mouth. Oxton’s mind raced. Perhaps the woman had led an evil life, and her passing was a mercy. Perhaps this death would spare dozens. She remembered, then, the woman who’d sent her here, how she’d felt like a pawn since the first night they met. Oddly, there was a modicum of comfort in that helplessness. LaCroix was not motivated by the fire of malice, but the ice of true indifference: this dead woman was just as likely a sinner as a saint.

_Small fucking mercies_, Oxton thought. She gathered her nerve. Round the woman’s waist, just above the covers, was a band of embroidered cloth and leather. If the belt was as valuable as LaCroix suggested, it’d make sense that she was still wearing it. Oxton studiously avoided the woman’s grey stare as she unlatched it, and slid it out from under her body. She was waiting for the woman to wake up and stop her, for a cold hand to clamp around her shivering wrist. The belt slid free without a sound.

She silently clicked her fingers and teleported into the corridor. It was empty. Of course. Why would LaCroix put herself at risk, even for a minute. Oxton pictured the stables in her mind’s eye and blinked outside.

Crickets in the long grass, wind in the trees, mud beneath her toes. Oxton looked back up at the Halfway Tavern, a small stone structure under an impossibly huge sky, a million stars pulsing indifferently. She wondered how long the woman’s magical lock would last, how many bodies Mistress Ramothran had discovered through the years, how cruel to offer a corpse in exchange for her kindness. Oxton knew she’d never return here. _One more to the list_. She sighed raggedly.

‘Do you need a moment?’

Oxton squeezed her eyes shut. ‘Gods below, do you never bloody well lay off?’ she hissed. She spun round to find LaCroix leaning against the hitching post, admiring a sleeping pack guar. Oxton stomped towards her and shoved the belt into her chest.

LaCroix seemed genuinely surprised, only barely holding on to the garment before it slipped from her grasp. Oxton stormed past her and down the cobbled street, heading out of the village.

‘I - if you knew what this is worth, you would not! - where do you think you are going? I demand you stop this instant!’

Oxton complied, fists clenched. She rolled her neck slowly, exhaled, and turned. ‘You do demand, don’t you,’ she spoke, softly, her mind clear as a rushing stream on a winter morning. ‘You say _jump_ and the world says _how high_.’

LaCroix rolled her eyes dramatically, tucking the belt into her bag. ‘Oh good, a lecture from my grandmother.’

Oxton laughed mirthlessly. ‘I’ll be your ratfucking great-uncle if it means you listen for a poxy second. Seriously, shut up, hear me out and I’ll bow and scrape from here to Vivec’s water closet.’

‘Or, I could gut you and tell the innkeeper _you _were the assassin.’ LaCroix could have been dithering between the steak and the salmon, for all the emotion in her voice.

‘Sure, and you can hoist forty fucking pounds of illicit goods on your own back for fifteen, twenty sodding miles.’ Oxton’s heart was racing, it was as if the words were coming from somewhere - someone - else entirely.

A pause. ‘You have until the count of ten.’

‘_Much obliged!_ You know what your problem is? You’ve never been anyone but _you_.’ She gestured toward LaCroix’s outfit, ‘Probably your idea of dressing down, a little costume for a little game with the little folk. Mean, _sure_, you’ve killed before, probably do it for fun, but you don’t understand risk, not really, not in your heart.’ She clenched her jaw. ‘I’ve met your type before, always thinking there’s a way out of anything, always a safety net, always two shakes of a lamb’s cock away from daddy riding in and saving the day, and you know the worst part? You’re right! You are _fucking correct_. Daddy’s the guards, daddy’s the landlord, daddy’s the chair of the high council. Daddy’s fucking _Septim _on his bastard throne. All just itching to bail you out at the drop of a fancy hat. Just _once_,’ her face was in her hands, ‘I want to see you, _any_ of you fuckers, face one single, solitary consequence. To know how it feels to have the earth fall out from under you, and see nowt beneath you but darkness. That’s all. That’s it.’

Oxton felt the fight drain out of her like the last flame from a fireplace. She sighed vocally. 

There was birdsong in the fields a few streets away.

LaCroix’s arms were folded, and her gaze steady. She then studied her shoes for some time, cleared her throat. ‘That was... much longer than ten.’

Oxton snatched the backpack out of her hand and marched out of town, toward the main road. To her surprise, she didn’t feel a knife between her backbones, or at her throat. She heard light footsteps fall into rhythm a few yards behind. As she passed under a wooden signpost marking the edge of town, she recalled the warning Yakum had given her the night before. _Anywhere but Vivec_. She recalled the ring lodged on her finger. Cursed, maybe. She didn’t _feel_ wrong; or, any wronger than circumstances dictated. Just a prank, maybe. Should’ve known better. See an enchanter when we reach Vivec.

‘If it interests you,’ LaCroix began, her arms still folded, ‘she was a bad person. Very.’

Oxton caught herself, before her mouth ran away. She took a breath. ‘Oh yeah? A rat can smell a rat?’

Nobody’s perfect.

LaCroix gave her a look. ‘My _friend_ identified her as a daedra worshipper, the leader of a cell of a murderous cult. The belt is an artefact of power, which my friend will assist me in destroying.’

‘Oh, bully for you. One of those care-in-the-community assassins, is it?’

She shrugged. ‘I simply thought you might like to know. Also,’ she sniffed, ‘you are headed the wrong way. Vivec is to the south.’

Oxton turned on her heel and strode on. LaCroix had no problem catching up with the smaller woman, unencumbered and in frankly excellent shoes. 

‘Say I believe you,’ Oxton offered. ‘Who’s this _friend_ of yours.’

‘You would not know him.’

Oxton smiled. ‘Oh sure. And I’ve a belle dame in every city _you’ve_ never been.’

‘Fine. His name is Jobasha, a Khajiit seller of rare books. Also an expert in arcane cults and such.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘Hunh?’ She made a face like she’d stepped in something foul.

‘You’re fucking kidding me. Jobasha. Rare books. In the Foreign Quarter.’

‘Wh- yes... but you said-’

‘Turns out we’ve mutual friends, Miss Tall-Dark-and-Interesting. Must be fate.’

The sun rose over Pelagiad. Word soon spread of an innocent local healer slain in the night behind a locked door. For years to come, Drelasa Ramothran’s fortunes soared as moneyed thrill-seekers queued up to test their nerve, and stay one night in the most haunted inn in Vvardenfell.

* * *

Tholer Saryoni was terribly aware of every joint and sinew in her legs. Only a few hours ago she had departed the Temple by the service entrance, in a simple cloak and sandals and traveller’s staff, hood pulled low over her face as she moved through the Fane’s waistworks. A pair of ordinators on dawn patrol had passed her by, all decked out in the holy armor of Vivec, precision-engineered to frighten the Lord’s children out of their wickedness. The alacrity with which she scurried out of their path seemed to meet their expectations of a pilgrim. Beyond them, only delivery workers. Saryoni suspected few, if any, would recognise the Archcanon out of her ceremonial robes.

Now, the sun starting to rise above the treeline, the thought concerned her as she stopped at the roadside, taking a seat upon a large, flat-topped stone where many had done likewise, judging by its surface, smooth and glistening. Why _shouldn’t_ delivery workers know their spiritual guide by name? Do they not _all_ bathe in Vivec’s light?

Saryoni knew the obvious answer: certainly, but some may bathe more regularly than others.

She removed a loaf of bread from her pack, along with a short knife, and cut herself a mouthful from the crust. This was good, she thought, getting back to basics. Should she not lead by example? Walk the paths of Vvardenfell beyond Vivec’s cantons. Break bread with the people. Witness the world from the ground up. Pilgrimage reminds one that a life of service - was she not still a servant, even so close to the god-king? - is the journey, and not the destination.

Frankly, the less said about the destination the better, given the decades that had passed since her last meeting with her mother. Given the terms on which they had parted. The only thing that lasts longer than a Dunmer is a Dunmer’s memory, as per the adage.

Saryoni decided now was a good time to occupy herself with study, keep her mind active while her body rested. The sun was just beginning to lend a little heat to the air, a light breeze brushing the occasional leaf off the branches overhanging the path. Beautiful. She opened her book and read the familiar lines of the homily, attempting to arrange the words in this new light, to invest them with the same energy she’d felt on her first pilgrimage. What was she reaching for? Change was necessary, she knew, but to what? Saryoni let her gaze wander back along the path she’d walked that morning. Far enough that the huge Foreign Quarter canton could be held between finger and thumb. She did so, closing an eye to complete the illusion. Pilgrimage brought out her frivolous side, she noted.

Turning back, she spotted a pair of travellers headed toward the holy capital. Outlanders, quite clearly. Saryoni had heard tell - blessings of Almsivi! - of outlander novices in Vvardenfell, however few and far between. Judging by the finery worn by the taller one, however, she doubted their commitment to a life of penury. She raised a hand in greeting as they came closer. The shorter of the two was red-faced and sweating under a pack far bigger than her torso. ‘Three blessings, fellow travellers! Care to share a loaf with an old pilgrim?’

The shorter one’s shoulders loosened as she beheld the bread like a long-lost love. The other continued walking. ‘Holy Mara bless you and keep you, granny.’ She dropped the pack with a thud and shimmied beside her on the rock, fishing around in her satchel for something to give in exchange.

Saryoni brushed her away. ‘No need! The light of Almsivi provides for my travels.’

The young woman snorted. ‘Good luck finding an innkeep who takes _light_, missus. Here,’ she pushed a few coppers into her palm as Saryoni handed her a hearty chunk of bread. ‘Everyone needs a little coin. Sorry about the Mara stuff, didn’t spot you were from the Temple.’

She studied the small coins for a second. A real pilgrim could hardly refuse. ‘Oh, bless your kindness. This will take me far,’ she lied. ‘And as to Mara, Kynareth, or whoever, Lord Vivec doesn’t judge, and nor do I. And your friend?’ She gestured to the taller woman, leaning impatiently against a tree some distance down the path, looking neutrally toward Vivec.

‘Nah, don’t think she eats, frankly. Alchemist, y’see. Why have porridge when you have potions?’

Saryoni laughed. ‘Oh, very good. My lady,’ she called, ‘the bread is fresh, still a little warm even! Try some for pleasure’s sake?’

She didn’t seem to hear.

‘Don’t mind her, gran,’ the woman said through a mouthful of crust, ‘refined sorts, eh. So! Said you’re a pilgrim? Heading to Vivec too?’

Saryoni regarded her first new friend. Young, by any standards, but Saryoni had met enough humans to see life had already left a mark on her. ‘Quite the opposite, my child. I have been there quite long enough. Time to do good work among the people, I think.’

The young woman looked absently at her travelling companion. ‘Hrn. Gods know there’s plenty who need it.’ She shook her head. ‘Sorry, Almsivi knows. Vivec knows? Fuck.’

Saryoni chuckled. ‘It’s quite alright, dear. I suppose you’re another new arrival to our shores.’

‘S’right. I’m, uh, in service to my lady here. Both from High Rock. Hoping to learn a trade, me. Maybe two.’ She bit down on another crust and held out her hand. ‘Toxteth, pleased-to-make-yer-acquaintance.’

Saryoni took it graciously. ‘Llevana Maesa.’

‘Levana?’

‘Mm, close. Llevana.’

‘Thlevana.’

Saryoni laughed again, truly delighted. ‘Goodness, what don’t they teach you in High Rock! Granny Maesa will do.’

Toxteth looked thoughtful. ‘_Maesa_? That a common name round here?’

‘Common as mucksponge, yes,’ Saryoni lied, again. She found the maintenance of a lie exhausting, looked forward to the long quiet days ahead in the wilderness, once she passed out of colonised land. ‘Have you met my kinfolk on your travels?’

She swallowed her bread. ‘Nah, nah, only got here yesterday. Must’ve misheard someone in the pub, still getting used to Dunmer names, eh. Heh.’

Saryoni noticed the grey bags around Toxteth’s eyes, the grit in her unkempt hair. She had slept in some unsavoury places herself, once upon a time. A pilgrim can rarely be picky. ‘You’ll get used to them,’ she smiled, and sliced off another chunk. ‘You look hungry, dear.’

Toxteth hesitated. ‘You hiding another loaf in there somewhere?’

‘No, no, but I should be in Balmora before sundown, and I have friends at the temple.’

‘_Sundown_?’ She looked skeptical. ‘Stendarr’s tits, how? You a priest _and _a wizard?’

Saryoni only just stopped herself from saying _archcanon_. ‘It’s not so far if you take the direct route.’ She nodded towards the young woman’s companion, a study in impatient nonchalance. ‘You’re travelling on alchemy business, you said?’

Toxteth bobbed her head. ‘Along those lines, aye.’

‘Well, do be sure to visit the Temple canton. I’m sure your compatriots in the Foreign Quarter have many fine brews, but nothing beats local knowledge. You’re bound to encounter plenty of new and exciting maladies here, and we’ve been curing them for centuries.’

Toxteth smiled. ‘Good tip, granny. Convert many heathens that way?’

She looked innocent. ‘What can I do if you happen to hear some good news? Besides, rockjoint and swamp fever are not to be toyed with.’

The taller woman approached them, her patience clearly worn. ‘Enough of this prattle. We are burning daylight. For your information, my _brews_,’ she curled a lip, ‘are more than capable of handling anything this sodden island throws at us.’

Saryoni nodded. She had met a great many ladies and lordlings like this one, particularly since the Emperor opened the island to colonists. Second sons and third daughters in terribly undignified circumstances, with precious little experience of addressing smallfolk. She fixed her eyes on the woman, thoroughly uncowed. ‘May you find what you seek. My lady.’

The woman blinked lazily. She caught her companion’s attention for a second and started walking again, not bothering, this time, to ensure she was being followed.

As Toxteth settled the pack onto her shoulders, Saryoni laid a hand on her arm. ‘May fortune find you find a better master,’ she whispered, ‘and if you reach the Temple, ask for Initiate Falavel. Tell him Granny Maesa sent you.’

She smiled, a little brightness returning to her eyes. ‘I will. Gods keep you, Gran,’ she called over her shoulder, ‘Vivec. I mean. Fucking. Look after yourself!’

Saryoni held up a hand to wave off the travellers. As Toxteth returned the gesture, Saryoni could have sworn she spotted something on her hand, glinting in the buttery morning light. A familiar sigil… She shielded her eyes with a hand and squinted, but Toxteth had already turned away, back to the path. Saryoni felt her chest tighten a little. Almost certainly a trick of the light, or symptoms of a mind taxed by excess worry and a shortage of sleep.

She chuckled at herself, squeezed the bridge of her nose and let the tension leave her. _You don’t think you might have noticed that the first outlander you met was wearing the Ring of Azura!?_ _Too early in the journey to lose your grip, Tholer_.

She brushed the crumbs from her cloak, gathered her satchel, and with one last look over her shoulder, headed north. The vast cantons of Vivec City gleamed in the sunlight.

* * *

Ana-Amari pushed open the wooden shutters, leant her forearms on the sill, and took in the view. Many years ago, on a dare, she had scaled the outer wall of the eastern watchtower in Balmora. She guessed the window of Jobasha’s Rare Books, itself only halfway up the Foreign Quarter canton, was a good ten feet higher than she’d climbed that night.

Down at the waterline, she could see the delivery boats shuttling back and forth, supervisors with parchment and quills, a pair of golden-armoured ordinators standing at attention, the eclectic dockside workers unloading and ferrying crates: dozens of shirtless men, women, elves, orcs, Khajiit and Argonians, all shiny with sweat in the sticky heat of late afternoon. A yell or a curse or a joke rose up to Ana-Amari’s high window, its meaning lost many feet below. To the south were the smaller cantons of the three Great Houses, each one the size of a small town, great hives of administration, government, nobility and wealth. In happier days, a favoured parlour game at the guild was concocting the perfect heist, almost always the vaults of the Great House treasuries in Vivec. What little intelligence reached the guild was patchy and untrustworthy, but enough for a night’s diversion, enough to spin a wild yarn of shadows, blades, magical scrolls and, more often than not, magical thinking.

Ana-Amari thought of better times, crunched loudly on an apple and sighed.

‘If this one lacks occupation, here are a great many administrative duties in want of idle hands,’ came a voice from inside.

Jobasha’s shop was a delicate, harmonic blend of chaos and order, an alchemical brew poised precisely between inertia and combustion. In the beginning, this lower level had been purely a living space, a cramped bedsit compared to the much larger shopfloor above. Time passed, good business did what good business does, and now shelves occuped every vertical surface from ceiling to floor - barring a tasteful landscape oil painting above the fireplace, the sun rising over the Ascadian Isles - and, incrementally, the division between Jobasha’s private and public dealings became academic. Nevertheless, each shelf was meticulously labelled in a tidy, legible script: _History_ _-> Dunmer History -> The Battle of Red Mountain_; _Philosophy -> Religion -> Saryoni’s Sermons_. An obscure book needn’t be hard to find, he reasoned. A small, neat pile of new acquisitions rested by the young khajiit’s elbow. He looked expectantly at his elder over a pince-nez.

Ana-Amari chewed and swallowed. ‘Non-specialised work. This one could not afford my rates.’

Jobasha puffed his cheeks. ‘Ana-Amari is no clerk, yes. And Jobasha is no innkeeper. Meet me half-way, I beg of you.’

‘I am not used to being cooped up. I am bored seeing nothing but these walls, hearing nothing but pens scratching and paper pushing.’

He replaced the quill in the pot and removed his glasses. ‘Fine. Fine! We take a break. What would you like to discuss.’

She took another bite. ‘What’s new in town?’

‘What’s new-? Ana-Amari. There are tens, maybe a hundred thousand people in Vivec. This one thinks we have a newsletter?’

‘Very well, one story. Tell me a good one and I will leave you be.’

‘Jobasha runs an entire bookstore and this one wants a story. Fine.’ He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. ‘Hnm. Word from the dockworkers is a ship came in from the mainland last week. Middle of the night. No company flag, no House regalia, nothing. Docked at the St. Delyn canton, so a few dockhands grab their equipment and head over - better to bring in an unscheduled job than let the goods rot, yes?’

Ana-Amari shrugged. ‘Do I look like a dockhand?’

‘_Yes_ is the answer. Anyway, they go down and already there are workers. Except, they are all new. No one before has seen these men.’

Her brow furrowed. ‘Smugglers?’

‘For sure, my friends were thinking the same. _But_. This ship was guarded. Elves in ordinators’ armour, masks and all. They say ‘go home or there’ll be trouble’. My friends say ‘these are not union men, _already_ there is trouble’. Then they threaten arrest, so my friends go home. In the morning, they round up twenty or so comrades, march over to the Office of the Watch.’

He paused dramatically, as if to invite Ana-Amari to guess what happened next. She gestured for him to get on with it.

‘They said there had _been no patrol_ at that time of night at St. Delyn.’ He punctuated the sentence with taps of his finger on the desk.

Ana-Amari’s apple was almost done. ‘So. Your friends interrupted a huge and not especially subtle secret mission, involving counterfeit or stolen ordinator uniforms. Or, the guards are lying. Or, the guards are part of a huge and not especially subtle secret mission.’

‘_Exactly_.’ Jobasha looked pleased with himself.

‘_Or_, your friends talk bullshit,’ she shrugged.

‘Y- what??’ He looked like a child with his toy taken away.

‘This one is talking about the temple, and the_ police_ of the temple. If the temple is importing drugs, or weapons, or fucking… _dildos_, they would do it during the day, under temple banners, in front of Vivec and the world. Anyone who says boo says it in iron chains.’

He waved her away impatiently. ‘Bah. The unions would never allow such things.’

‘Union shmunion, if the police break this one’s legs the union cannot unbreak them.’ She bit the tip of a claw, spat it out the window. ‘You are young, Jobasha. Power is old, and what it cannot exploit it controls, what it cannot control it destroys. How do you know what dockworkers do in the night time anyway? They are twinned with the bookseller union?’

‘They needed a scribe for their meetings. Not everyone writes, almost no-one writes short-hand, so Jobasha keeps records.’

‘For free?’

‘Pshhhh.’ Jobasha looked impatient. ‘Not everything is about money, den-mother.’

‘Jobasha only says this because he has some.’

‘Fine.’ He clapped his hands briskly. ‘Break time is over. Read quietly while I work, maybe?’

Ana-Amari slumped her shoulders. ‘Your selection, it is…’ she made a face.

Jobasha crossed his arms. ‘...the widest in Vivec? ...the envy of all Vvardenfell? ...the only bookshop on which the holy cops keep a file?’

‘Niche,’ she stated.

He looked at her stone-faced. He wagged a finger, rapped a knuckle on the table. Shuffled his papers. ‘Jobasha has errands,’ he said, half to himself, swinging a cape off the back of his chair and around his shoulders. ‘You would die of thirst in an oasis! When I get back, this one tells me _one thing_ she has learned, or this one gets tied to a guar and sent to Ald'ruhn.’

‘Balmora.’

‘I do not care!’ He snatched a bag and climbed the stairs to the shop floor. The bell on the front doorframe jingled.

‘Jobasha!’

‘What!?’

‘If you happen upon the new _High Town_ novel, will you pick it up for me?’

The door slammed.

Ana-Amari finished her apple and tossed the core out the window. A few seconds passed before the faint splash. She crossed the room to where Jobasha had been sitting, leafed idly through the young man’s papers. Little of interest. Judging by his notes, Jobasha really was connected to the local workers’ groups, given his meticulous minutes from their meetings in the underworks. She reasoned that his interest was primarily intellectual, however. Couldn’t picture the slight, excitable kitten wielding a blade or a cudgel if strike came to strike-breakers. One hearty swing and his glasses would fall off, and that would be that.

She gave up on snooping. She suspected Jobasha’s paranoia about the ordinators was borne of pride and inflated notions about the importance of books. The cops don’t debate you out of criminality.

She glanced along the shelves. If Jobasha’s shop didn’t specialise in the kind of narratives she usually appreciated, she’d lived long enough to know the truth just as juicy. Judging by the thin layer of dust, the shelves in the corner closest to the kitchen, marked _History -> Dark Brotherhood_, were unloved by the clientele, and so piqued Ana-Amari’s interest. Most of these so-called ‘histories’ of the assassin’s guild fell somewhere between hearsay and fairy-tale. She was surprised he even stocked them. One copy of _The Black Hand_ looked fresher than the others, free of the thin, greasy layer of dust on the spine. She lifted it.

Something dropped from under the fly-leaf, and onto the floor. She picked it up and turned it over in her paw. A small, stone cylinder, broad, with irregular indentations. To an untrained eye, a token of little importance, but Ana-Amari had cracked a few safes in her time. A key, hidden inside a salacious, yet unpopular book. She’d looked for a story, and found one.

From Jobasha’s demonstrative exit, Ana-Amari guessed he would be some time. She decided to indulge her curiosity. If I was the sort of person who hid a secret key in a secret book, where would I hide whatever it opens? It clicked. She pocketed the key and jogged up the stairs.

She approached the fireplace, admired the large, framed oil painting hanging above it. Carefully lifted it off the hook. Behind the painting, set into the wall, was a safe.

She set the painting down, looked at the front door. It was probably just where he kept the shop’s cash. But the key in the book? The whole thing made Ana-Amari itch. She fiddled with the key in her pocket. She’d come this far. Just have a quick peek and put everything back. He _did _say she should learn something while he was gone.

Empty. Ana-Amari narrowed her eyes. She ran her paw around the inside of the safe: there. Tucked into a pouch at the back was a letter. She read it quickly. It was… normal. An order for books. A customer, giving an order for alchemy recipes. Sent by… gods below. It couldn’t be a coincidence. She remembered an old trick her own den-mother had taught her. She spat on her finger, ran it over the blank space at the foot of the page. Slowly, with a heaviness that made her mind race, a small, stylised black hand materialised, severed at the wrist.

A knock at the door.

In a flash, she stuffed the letter back inside, hung the painting as straight as she could. Another knock, louder.

She placed her ear against the door. Two people. 

She affected an accent she hoped sounded like Jobasha’s. ‘We’re closed!’

From the other side: ‘Uh. Suck my dick?’

‘Fuck.’ She opened it.

‘Afternoon, granny! Jolly good to see you too.’ Not far beneath the exuberant surface, Oxton looked even more exhausted than the last time they’d met. ‘You’ll never believe this but this is-’

‘Amélie LaCroix of Wayrest,’ Ana-Amari stated. ‘She is here about the Brotherhood.’

Oxton paled, looked up at LaCroix, who for once had the decency to be shocked. She fumbled for words for a second before demanding, ‘And who the fuck are you?’

Ana-Amari gave a grin that was mostly fangs. ‘Your very recently un-retired den-mother. Please, do come in. You are just in time for the founding of the newest Thieves Guild in Vvardenfell.’


	5. Moon and Star

Three mid-sized logs arranged in a triangle, sheltering the kindling from the wind. From beneath her thick woollen blanket, Tholer Saryoni poked the embers of her fire with a long twig, allowed the flames to draw one more breath before unfurling into ash. She gazed up at the sky, inhaled the silence.

Something about a fire at night shrinks the world. A tiny pool of light and heat against the indifference of the unfathomable sky. In her mind’s eye, Saryoni’s bubble of fire went drifting around the twin moons, peering down at Tamriel, the land the elder tongues once named Dawn’s Beauty, Starry Heart, seeing as the gods see.

_But which gods_, asked a smug little voice at the back of her mind.

Saryoni shooed the voice away. It would not meddle with her serenity tonight. Her fingers were not cold, her belly was not empty, and she had cast a few cantrips around her little camp to ward off the rats.

Earlier that evening, she had enjoyed a fine, if rustic, meal with the faithful in the Balmora temple. A day’s walk is a day’s hunger, a fine reminder of the body’s frailty, of the humility so often missing from the temple hierarchy. In truth she was relieved to draw no particular notice. She’d fallen into conversation with a healer from Ald Velothi on the north coast, a rough sort who freely shared tales of splinting fishermen’s arms and administering purgatives to man, elf and beast alike. Saryoni found her appetite quite curtailed after that. Good to know the temple attracts resourceful sorts from all corners, though. She hoped her village was in good hands in her absence.

Keeping one’s head down over a lamplit supper is one thing, hoping to remain incognito in the cold light of day quite another. She bade her new friend farewell as the sky turned from gloaming into night.

Under moons and stars, Saryoni kicked dirt over her fire. As her eyes adjusted to the moonlight, the imperial town of Caldera took shape in front of her. Harsh red light rose from the foundries, even in the witching hour. She reflected on how, for a few days at the very least, such matters were no longer her responsibility. The empire’s ravenous appetite for what had lain undisturbed beneath Vvardenfell for untold generations. The underpaid and unprotected workers, drawn almost entirely from the indigenous Dunmer. She thought of those familiar faces in the darkness.

Perhaps more accurate to say those matters were, for now, beyond her power to influence.

Tholer Saryoni laid herself flat on her bedroll, allowed the earth beneath her to support her weight, and drifted into dreams of underground rivers.

* * *

Lena Oxton had many skills, but crisis mediation was not one of them.

‘Now look, lads, I bet if we all just take a nice big breath-’

‘-it will be the last one this one takes, unless this one puts her fucking toothpick away. How much did _mamá_ and _papá_ spend on this, eh?’

‘-well, den granny, that’s not _quite_ what-’

‘I sheathe my blade once the chat de putain explains how she knows my business.’

Ana-Amari rolled her eye. ‘Je parle fucking Breton, kitten, it’s barely an imperial dialect.’

‘That’s a fascinating observation,’ Oxton nodded vigorously, ‘now, what a great opportunity to-’

The door swung open.

On reflex, LaCroix flung a magical firebolt with her free hand.

Eyes like dinner plates, Jobasha hit the deck in a cloud of papers, several of which exploded into ash over his head. Behind him, a portion of the sandstone corridor crumbled into charred hunks of masonry.

As the dust settled, he gathered his parchment, his glasses, and his composure. ‘Ah, Amélie,’ he smiled, dusting himself off, drawing himself as tall as his frame permitted, ‘you made it. I see you have met Ana-Amari. She has this effect on people.’

He inspected the outer wall.

‘I, uh, apologise for the damage,’ LaCroix offered, blade still drawn. ‘Let me know the cost.’

Jobasha waved a paw dismissively as he closed the door. ‘I’ll blame the alchemists down the hall. Now,’ he clapped his hands and smiled broadly. ‘What the fuck.’

Ana-Amari opened her mouth to speak. ‘No. No, thank you,’ Jobasha interrupted. ‘You, stranger,’ he clicked his fingers at Oxton, ‘Jobasha doesn’t know you, so you won’t lie to Jobasha. What happened here, if you please.’

Oxton looked between her murderous den-mother and her recent accessory to murder. Her eyes rested on LaCroix’s silver dagger, its intricate ornamentation, a blade that could cut glass. She swallowed dryly.

Jobasha sighed. ‘Amélie, for pity’s sake. Your sword, please.’

She looked at him flatly, then obliged, the dagger slotting into its scabbard like a lock snapping shut. Oxton tried to remember LaCroix doing as anyone asked, and came up blank.

Ana-Amari intervened. ‘For gods’ sake. The tall one marches in, sees she is at a disadvantage and has a temper tantrum, as you witnessed. Ana-Amari suspects that Oxton - the little one, dear Jobasha - is in the tall one’s employ until her debt is paid, hence her unprecedented discretion.’

Oxton smiled and threw up her hands. ‘Dead to rights! Ha ha ha.’

‘But Jobasha should know,’ Ana-Amari’s voice was almost playful, ‘that these good souls are now in Ana-Amari’s service. I promised friend Cosades I would train the little one; I suspect the tall one has murderous intents with Jobasha’s mysterious new friends in the St. Delyn canton; I also suspect Jobasha thinks those friends have something he wants. So Ana-Amari has done friend Jobasha a favour and _temporarily_’, she looked pointedly at LaCroix, ‘brought some concerned citizens together to our mutual benefit.’

There was a beat of silence while Oxton tried to read the room. LaCroix - _Amélie to her friends, gods help us_ \- arms folded, lips tight, simmering. Jobasha, looking thoughtfully at the wall. Ana-Amari, energetically moving books on a table to make space for a drawing board. Setting a plan into action had knocked years off her.

Jobasha appeared to make up his mind. ‘So this one _doesn’t_ think my friends are bullshitters, in fact she inserts herself into Jobasha’s carefully laid plans.’

‘Should’ve said they were with the brotherhood.’

LaCroix tilted her head at Jobasha and raised her eyebrows. He sighed. 

Ana-Amari smiled. ‘Excellent. Now, we have much to plan and little time. Jobasha, friend, has the St. Delyn canton had major renovations in the past thirty years?’

‘I’m twenty-three.’

‘And?’

‘Gods below. Not to my knowledge, Ana-Amari.’

‘Good. Ana-Amari did a little work down there in the nineties.’ She took a nub of charcoal and started sketching. Oxton’s curiosity won out over her flight response, and she stepped toward the table, peeking over the den-mother’s shoulder. A large, detailed map of the St Delyn underworks, marking drains out into the bay, ladders into the upper levels, locations of storehouses and safehouses.

‘Thirty bloody years, eh?’

Ana-Amari glanced at her, unable to hide a little pride. She tapped her temple. ‘This one doesn’t store every mark up here?’

‘Wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,’ Oxton admitted. ‘Just hoping my memory’s a bit more selective.’

Ana-Amari barked a laugh. ‘Do not count on it, kitten. Here,’ she tapped a claw on a door symbol in the north-west corner, ‘this is the only chamber big enough for smugglers with funny relationships to the temple.’

LaCroix huffed in the corner. ‘Nothing Jobasha and I could not have told you.’

‘And it is a stupid mouse that only knows one hole,’ Ana-Amari explained patiently. ‘In my day, we made use of tunnels. Locked with magic. We use them tonight and this one keeps her toothpick nice and clean.’

‘Maybe _this one_ likes getting it dirty.’

Oxton rubbed her face with her hand. ‘Appealing as that sounds, I’d sooner keep me blood on the inside, ta. Jobasha - am I saying that right? - who are these people anyway?’

He nodded. ‘Close enough. Jobasha’s friends did not have access to the site at the time, and none have an excuse to be down there now. But, Jobasha’s friends also hear tell of some new cult taking root in Vvardenfell, one that makes the temple hierarchs sleepless.’

‘I am confused,’ Ana-Amari frowned. ‘Jobasha said ordinators were guarding the ships. And what do kind of a cult hires smugglers?’

‘I said they wore ordinator _uniforms_-’

‘Baise_-moi_, I am not here for old wives’ stories and gossip over needlepoint. Tell me of these tunnels before I die of aging.’

‘Always in a rush, these young ones. Fine. Ana-Amari assumes friend Jobasha will not be on the ground for this one.’

‘Friend Ana-Amari assumes correctly. Who would arrange your affairs if you fuck it up?’

‘Noble.’ She marked a cross on the map. ‘There is a passage alongside this chamber, bricked up many centuries ago. Myself and my faithful apprentice,’ she waved a paw at Oxton, ‘access it through the catacombs: Ana-Amari keeps watch from the passage; longshanks here will take point at the front door, put those fireballs to good use if things turn sour.’

LaCroix raised a palm. ‘Wait. _Our_ plan was that _I_ should perform the extraction.’

‘_Extraction_,’ Ana-Amari echoed distastefully. ‘Let us call a turd fertilizer, heh? Ana-Amari fears this one might _extract_ blood when all we need is friend Jobasha’s trinket.’

‘Jobasha and I have reason to believe they are connected to the cultist in Pelagiad. Why shouldn’t we rid ourselves of them too?’

Ana-Amari’s patience was wearing thin. ‘When all one knows is knives every problem looks like throats. Perhaps this one was daydreaming when Jobasha mentions that the ratfucking _ordinators_ are sniffing around.’

Jobasha stepped forward. ‘Ana-Amari, she was only-’

‘-Only going to get people _killed_, friend Jobasha.’ Ana-Amari caught herself, took a deep, tired breath. She turned back to LaCroix. ‘Perhaps this one dices with death for sport, but for Ana-Amari, this is _work_. You are the cavalry tonight. If there is fighting, we need someone who breaks down doors. If there is no fighting, we only need someone who disappears. Understand?’

‘Fine. But should I hear so much as an errant _squeak_ from that room-’

‘Then this one is the big hero. And we learn in what high places our enemies have friends.’

A long silence filled the room. Oxton thought of all her scrapes and near misses, and of cells and locks and guards.

‘Ready when you are, chief,’ she said.

‘Good. Now. You two need rest, Ana-Amari can smell the road on you. There is a bathhouse in the lower waistworks with rooms that charge by the hour. Tell them Jobasha sent you.’

He bristled. ‘So kind of Jobasha! Perhaps Jobasha should give up this bookseller nonsense and make some real money as an almoner.’

‘It’s alright, pal, I’ve still got some cash handy,’ Oxton reassured them, taking up LaCroix’s pack.

‘Leave that here,’ LaCroix ordered, ‘there is something Jobasha needs to see.’

Ana-Amari didn’t look up from the notes she was making on the parchment. ‘Hand of glory, is it?’

LaCroix’s indignation was a marvel to behold. She stormed out without a word.

Ana-Amari chuckled. ‘What nonsense is Jobasha toying with? You think a mummified hand will lead you to victory? That the Night-Mother will smile, and your foes will weep, and-’

‘I take your point, friend Ana-Amari.’ Jobasha was examining his charred papers, trying to work out what would need fresh copies. ‘But look, if spooky tales for soft kitties is what gets the job done, so be it.’

‘Whatcha mean, tales?’ Oxton lifted the hand gingerly out of the bag, handing it to the young Khajiit. ‘I’ve seen the Brotherhood at work, they’re nothing to mess with.’

‘Oh! A good specimen,’ Jobasha adjusted his pince-nez. ‘On the continent, I am sure they are quite fearsome. On Vvardenfell? Let us say, the company has not opened a franchise.’

Oxton was still processing this new information. ‘So, wait. You’re just employing a freelance murderer?’

‘Oh, heavens no. I get my writs from the Morag Tong. All the results, none of the theatricality, and entirely within Dunmer law, to boot.’ He cleared a space on the mantlepiece for the hand. ‘Gives the room a little, _eldritch_ flavour, does it not?’

‘Morag…’

‘Tong, kitten,’ Ana-Amari interjected helpfully. ‘Dunmer killers’ guild. Been around centuries before those aristocratic imperial s’wits thought to play dress-up.’

‘A slight simplification,’ Jobasha shrugged. ‘But Jobasha thinks, _Lady LaCroix is unlikely to work for_ _uncultured locals_, so he spins a little untruth. Perhaps she cares little herself. She has skills she wishes to practice, Jobasha has work he wishes enacted. And a little secrecy never killed anyone.’

Ana-Amari gave him a look.

‘So to speak.’

The den-mother turned back to Oxton. ‘I was not joking about rest, little one. You look like shit, and we are not pinching grandmother’s purse tonight. You have coin for food?’

Oxton fixed her hair, absently. ‘Should do, unless they’re total bandits here.’

‘You’ll find out. We meet in the St Delyn underworks, after the third bell. Swift hunting.’

‘Swift hunting, den-mother.’ She made a small gesture in thieves cant, and departed.

A smile crossed Ana-Amari’s face, briefly. ‘Friend Jobasha, you have tea here, yes?’

He looked wounded. ‘You take Jobasha for a barbarian?’

‘Good. Boil a kettle of something spicy. We have research to do.’

* * *

Oxton dallied on the way to the bathhouse. She’d had hardly a moment’s peace in two days, and doubted her new guildmate was feeling too chatty either. From the outside, the Foreign Quarter canton was imposing, austere, a statement in stone. Difficult to make a mountain-sized structure feel homely, and the wind-beaten banners draped from the upper tiers only seemed to amplify the power it embodied, its divine ingenuity.

Inside was another matter. The interior was on several floors, from the swanky housing, artisanal boutiques and the mages’ guild occupying the upper plaza, to the workers dormitories and cornerclubs on the lower waistworks. All of this was unified by an open space in the centre of each floor, a hollow reaching through each of the five storeys, illuminating the burrow-like corridors, the animal-life of the city.

When Lord Vivec founded the cantons, he planted a great tree in each one; a prophecy circulated declaring that when its branches reached the plaza roof, Vivec would fall. Centuries later, when the canopies began to stretch past the upper waistworks, the Temple retained a team of gardeners.

Each floor had a balcony, and it was here that Lena Oxton paused to gather her thoughts. Jobasha’s shop sat in the very middle of the canton’s hierarchy, and, leaning somewhat precariously over the edge, Oxton could see through the branches to the linen tapestries and exotic ferns lining the plaza balcony. She didn’t have to look down to smell the food carts and meat markets on the ground floor. Her mouth watered. She plucked some fruit from the tree’s branches and munched it. Pretty good.

She strolled on toward the baths. She wondered, idly, about the humbler kind of magic that installed running water throughout the canton. Did Vivec have the nobs in mind when he put their gaffs on the top deck? Did he verily hew the shitter pipes from the living rock? Did some poor bastard have to improvise after the fact? She resolved to ask a priest if she ever bumped into one.

Oxton finished her fruit as she pushed open the door to the baths. The reception was surprisingly busy. It was still the middle of the afternoon, didn’t these people have work to do? On reflection, Oxton, too, was these people. Perhaps they were all thieves with a side gig abetting the murder of innocent cultists.

The wood elf behind the counter was working hard to mask her frayed nerves, furiously jotting something down in a ledger. Oxton greeted her.

‘Oh!’ The Bosmer’s smile was bright and strained. ‘Good afternoon, welcome to Bauriel’s Baths, how may I be of assistance?’

‘Just a bath and a bed if you’ve got ‘em.’

Bauriel looked dismayed. ‘We’re at capacity in the baths, but…’ she checked the heavily annotated ledger, ‘we have one single bed, one drake per hour. That work?’

‘Jobs a good’un.’ Oxton fished around in her satchel. ‘Here’s five for me, one for you. Looks like you’re getting the run around today,’ she noted, nodding her head toward the throng.

Bauriel smiled and relaxed her shoulders for a second. ‘Oh, _gods_.’ She leaned in conspiratorially. ‘Fucking festival of St Llothis. _Ancient ceremony_ the temple only started observing again when the coffers ran a little dry. Know what he’s the saint of?’

‘Surprise me.’

‘_Tailors_. Can you believe? Pilgrims out the wazoo, though. Keeps me in silks.’ She handed Oxton a key. ‘Down the hall, third door on the left. I’ll knock when your time’s up.’

‘Much obliged, love. Oh, by the way, did a lanky lass come through a minute ago? Severe, posh, cheekbones you could cut bread with?’

The Bosmer smirked and raised an eyebrow. ‘Sure did. Straight to the baths, not even so much as a thank you kindly.’ She gazed off toward the changing rooms. ‘Friend of yours?’

‘Uh, business partner.’

Bauriel studied her a little, then made a face that said _not my concern_. ‘Well, enjoy your stay. You look as bushed as I feel.’

‘Cheers, boss. Catch you on the other side.’

Oxton made her way down the corridor and turned the key. The bed inside was low, just a foot or so off the ground in a wooden frame, but the sheets were clean, and the room smelled of fresh herbs. The soft _clunk_ as the door swung shut behind her triggered something warm and liquid and utterly delightful in her mind. She kicked off her boots, dumped her satchel and overclothes, and was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

* * *

Someone was in the room.

Oxton felt adrenaline rush through her as she leapt to her feet, which happened to be wrapped in the duvet.

Her shoulder hit the rush mat hard, she spotted her satchel, clawed through it to the cloth wrappings where she kept her dagger. A lead weight landed in her gut. It was gone.

She scrabbled backward into the corner, her eyes darting around the room. There was… no-one?

A pale, narrow, cheekboney face peered over the edge of the bed.

‘You’re stealing the sheets.’

Oxton let her head hit the wall with a thunk. ‘Fuck. Me. _Running_. The fuck are you doing here?’

LaCroix pulled the sheets back onto the bed and turned on her side. ‘I _was_ sleeping.’

‘How did you even get in? Didn’t think to give me a heads up?’

‘The nice lady said you were asking for me. You said it was fine.’

‘I was _asleep!_’

‘We have two hours left on the clock.’

Oxton dragged her hands down her face then pulled herself back under the covers. ‘Where’s my knife?’

‘This bathhouse has a cleaning service. Your clothes, too. You’re welcome.’

‘Hope you’re paying for that.’

‘Ouais.’

Oxton rearranged herself, trying to get comfortable. Tricky, being arm’s length from someone who’s made multiple attempts on one’s life in the past forty-eight hours. Not dead yet, though. Still useful, she supposed.

Not the _most_ reassuring thought.

Oxton cleared her throat. ‘I’m all buzzing now.’ She turned onto her back. ‘Talk to me, helps me sleep.’

LaCroix exhaled deeply. ‘Fine. You would like to hear a story?’

‘Did you grow up in a castle?’

She shot an incredulous look over her shoulder. ‘_What_.’

‘Y’know, there’s that big castle back in Wayrest. That yours?’

LaCroix sighed again. ‘If my family were the Lords of the richest city in High Rock, do you suppose they would ship off their only daughter to this hellhole.’

‘So who are they?’

‘Bankers. Good ones. My father worked his way up through Count at-Tura’s company, and purchased our land and title shortly after I was born.’

‘Sounds a real stand-up citizen.’

‘He is not.’

‘Oh.’ Oxton stared at the ceiling. ‘What’s that tattoo about? The big spider and web on your back? Must’ve cost the moon.’

‘If you need to know I shall tell you.’

‘Mm.’ She turned on her side, hand under her head. She blinked a few times, feeling the heavy sheets’ gentle pressure wash over her. ‘How many people have you killed,’ she yawned.

‘Henh?’

‘How many?’ Oxton’s eyes were closed. There was a long silence.

‘Seven.’

‘That includin’ the bad lady at the pub?’

‘...eight.’

‘Huh.’ Oxton yawned. ‘Thought it’d be more.’

‘Eight is a lot of lives to take.’

‘Sure, sure… just, like. I dunno _how_ many people I’ve robbed. Hunners, prob’ly.’

‘Yes, well, perhaps one takes one’s calling rather more seriously.’ She propped herself up on her elbows. ‘Perhaps _any_ fool can be taught how to pocket a coinpurse, but _my_ profession…’

Oxton snored gently.

Amélie LaCroix studied her face for a long second. Too many lines beneath the eyes for one her age. The faint white tissue of old scars.

She turned back toward the wall. Counted the cracks in the plaster. One, two… three… 

four

* * *

By the time Bauriel knocked, they were both awake, shaking out the sleep from their limbs, and Oxton was trying to ignore the new information she’d absorbed about LaCroix: her scent after the perfume was gone, the rhythms of her breathing, the soft, wordless noises she made in her sleep. Bauriel handed Oxton her clothes, as clean as they’d been in months, her silver dagger resting on top. She thanked her and turned back into the room.

LaCroix was pulling her leathers up over her hips. Oxton instinctively turned away, though she doubted she’d shake the image quickly from her mind. She placed the dagger back in its wrappings and sat down on the bed to change. The pants were softer than when she’d bought them.

‘We will take the high bridges to the St Delyn canton,’ LaCroix announced, the midnight purple of her outfit covering her head to toe. ‘We shan’t have much company at this time of night.’

‘You’re the boss.’ Oxton smirked, pulling on her shirt. ‘Was looking forward to a romantic ride on the gondola though.’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘The gondolas are disgusting, only to be taken under extreme duress.’

‘I was joking.’

‘Desist. We are not dealing with the gormless constabulary of Balmora. The ordinators are not known for leniency, and I shall not place my life in danger ahead of yours.’

Oxton resisted the urge to state the obvious. ‘Well, lead on, chief. I’m the tourist here.’

The upper levels of Vivec’s cantons were connected by stone bridges, only a low wall between the walker and an eighty-foot drop into the dark water of Norvayn Bay. The wind howled. As LaCroix had predicted, there was hardly a soul in sight; far below, a spot of light might have been an ordinator’s torch, an open window, a cluster of fireflies. Oxton drew up her hood against the chill.

‘I feel like you were gunna tell me something important before I fell asleep.’

LaCroix poked her head round the corner at the far end of the bridge. All clear. ‘That is of no interest to me.’

‘_That is of no interest to me_. Most people’d just say, I dunno, _okay_, or make a joke or summat.’

‘I regret my shortcomings.’

Oxton smiled. ‘There! Y’see. That’s more like it.’

LaCroix shot her a peevish look. ‘You are aware we may be walking into a death trap, yes?’

‘What else is new!’ she shrugged. ‘Two days ago I was in a fucking imperial prison ship, today I’m in a town unlike anything I’ve ever seen, me gear smells like angel farts, and if I stay alive long enough I’ve got a way to put food on the table for a bit.’ She smiled at the water far below. ‘What’s your excuse?’

LaCroix frowned at her. ‘Usually, Jobasha and I spend weeks in preparation before striking. But you and the old cat show up and suddenly a successful formula is down the drain.’

‘Nah, I mean, like, generally. You’ve got your own shop, nice flat on nob hill, cops in your pocket, why put yourself out like this?’

LaCroix kept walking. In majuscule script on the side of the new canton was the word ‘ARENA’ and a flurry of posters for fights. Oxton cast her eye across them as they passed. Very few names appeared twice.

‘Someone had to, I suppose,’ LaCroix offered, holding herself tall. ‘We are doing some good in the world.’

‘Huh.’ Oxton put her hands in her pockets. The sound of water splashing the sides of the canton, the call of seabirds.

‘That does not satisfy you.’ She could hear a faint edge in LaCroix’s voice.

‘Nah, s’fine. Just that... it’s not true, is it.’

LaCroix stopped and turned to face Oxton, arms folded, lips pursed. ‘You call me a liar.’

Oxton propped herself up against a wall. ‘I'm sure _you_ believe it, might even be true, kinda. Just... isn’t there an easier way?’

‘What are you talking about.’

‘Like, sure, offing some creepo cultists or whatever, hats off to you. But _doing some good_, like there ain’t folk starving right under your nose in Balmora.’

‘You think I should feed the infirm in the temple?’

Oxton counted on her fingers. ‘I mean, a: what’s so ridiculous about that, and b: you’re minted! Go grease some wheels! Press some palms! If you can’t get things moving, then who?’

LaCroix rolled her eyes. ‘I think you overestimate how influential the local alchemist can be.’

‘Maybe, but you ain’t your common-or-garden hedge-witch, unless I missed some _fascinating_ lessons at magic school.’

She looked at the sky, only partly in exasperation. ‘A patrol could be here any moment, and I cannot think of an excuse for being here at this hour.’ She began walking towards the second high bridge.

‘Say we’re newlyweds on a midnight stroll.’ Oxton’s grin was shit-eating.

‘Dressed like this?’

‘Maybe I like you in leather.’

‘I have changed my mind, death would be quite welcome.’

Oxton placed the back of her hand to her forehead. ‘My _dahling_, please! Give me another _chahnce!_’

‘I was wrong. _your_ death would be quite welcome.’

‘_That’s_ the woman I married.’

Under the twin moons and a sky full of stars, an assassin and a thief crossed the bridge to the St Delyn canton.

* * *

The St Delyn underworks, as throughout Vivec, was less a sewer and more an artificial river conducted through the body of the canton. The side-effect of maintaining a large, hygienic, and lightly guarded space well clear of the public eye was chaotic, to say the least. Rolling the dice on the day, season, or whim of the marketplace, a rogue wanderer was as likely to discover a smuggler as a slave market as an unholy shrine.

Tonight, the coast was clear. Perhaps too many guards drawn away to watch the pilgrims. Hunched behind a stack of crates, Ana-Amari watched as two figures popped open the hatch into the underworks, swiftly descended the ladder. She flicked a little spark of magical light in their direction. They scurried her way.

Oxton dropped down to her haunches beside Ana-Amari. ‘Fuck me, dark as a witch’s tit in here.’

‘Arse.’

‘Eh?’

‘Dark as a witch’s _arse_, kitten. _Cold_ as a witch’s tit.’

‘When you two clowns are _quite_ ready.’ LaCroix hissed, eyes focused on a spot in the dark about forty yards along the river. In the gloom, Oxton could only make out faint reflections in her eyes - a night-eye spell? _mayhap their_ _natural luminescence_, came a sarcastic inner voice - the rest of her outfit no more discernible than her own shadow.

Ana-Amari grunted. ‘This is where you will keep watch, spider-legs. Little one,’ she moved very close, caught her eyes, ‘is with me. Not a step Ana-Amari does not take, not a word Ana-Amari does not ask for. I will give the signal, the kitten will use her _magic_,’ she was working hard to hide her disdain, ‘to enter the storeroom where we believe is the shrine. She will make her entry and exit unseen. Now, one question remains-’

‘What, exactly, am I lifting?’

‘Precisely?’ Ana-Amari took a breath. ‘We are unsure.’

Oxton blinked. ‘You what, mate.’

‘Friend Jobasha and I spent many hours in study, and we have narrowed it down to a goblet, a sword, or a pair of boots.’

‘...’

Ana-Amari looked unrepentant. ‘This one recalls the belt she took in Pelagiad?’

‘It was today, technically, so yes.’

‘It will feel like that.’

‘A sword that feels like a belt.’

‘Like a magical belt. Or a goblet.’

Oxton pinched the bridge of her nose.

‘This one bleats about her magical training, so she should have no problem identifying an artefact of great power, yes?’

‘Guess we’ll find out.’

‘Good enough. Once in the passage, signs only. Tall one, y-’

‘_Lady_ Amélie Gui-’

‘_High britches of Uptown_, gods below, if we do not return in three hundred heartbeats, you have Ana-Amari’s permission to indulge yourself. Understood?’

‘I will exercise my critical faculties, thank you.’

‘Fine. Kitten.’ Ana-Amari pointed to her own eye, then to Oxton’s. She muttered some words beneath her breath in a language Oxton didn’t recognise, and tapped her claws on the stonework. With a hum of arcane energy, a three-foot square gap opened up. Ana-Amari crawled through. Oxton moved to follow her, then turned back to LaCroix.

‘Swift hunting.’

‘Fuck off.’

Oxton grinned and shimmied through the passage. After a few yards, she could stand: only space for single file, the air cool and sharp. Ana-Amari tapped her shoulder, a dim magical flame resting above her other palm. She signed _old marks_ in thieves’ cant, pointed at the walls. A whole canvas of drawings, barely touched by time or dust in their sealed-up hallway: maps of the canton underworks, stash locations, encrypted names of fences and informants. The den-mother allowed herself a few seconds, touched a paw beneath one of the names. Oxton waited. Ana-Amari exhaled and nodded down the passage.

About ten paces further, Ana-Amari paused, placed a large ear to the wall. She signed: _here. Guards asleep or dead._ Oxton nodded, prepared the teleportation spell in her mind. Ana-Amari squeezed her shoulder. _Nothing but a trip to the greengrocer._

Oxton smiled back. Blinked.

In a glow of lilac, she opened her eyes in a dark room, she guessed about twelve feet from wall to wall. Low ceiling, earthen floor, crates stacked high around the edges. Nothing here to suggest any kind of ritual. Each crate was marked with a strange insignia: three circles in triangular formation around a diamond; a fourth, horned circle at the top, all within one much larger circle. It looked like the eye of some terrible insect. She tried to devote it to memory. An open doorway led into the main section of the storeroom. A faint light flickered through it, perhaps a candle, too small to be a fire. Oxton held her breath and listened for movement. Perhaps a rat scuttling in the walls. Nothing but her heartbeat. Placing one foot in front of the other, she stepped towards the other room.

Well, that settled that.

The door opened out into a huge chamber, on the far side of which was - unless Oxton’s orientation had fritzed when she blinked - the way back out to the catacombs. Between her and the exit was a huge, stone slab, smack in the centre of the room, large enough to lie down on. On its surface, six red candles, guttering into nubs of wax. Between them, lying flat on their side, a pair of leather boots.

Oxton took a step toward them and paused. Something in her gut. She checked the other corners of the room, maybe this was... a decoy? Because a random group of death cultists knew they were gunna get robbed tonight? She breathed deep, tried to shake the feeling. There’s discretion and there’s paranoia. She snuffed out the nearest candle, reached over to the boots, readied the teleportation magic.

Froze.

‘He said you’d be coming.’

Oxton drew her blade in a heartbeat. Pointed it toward the voice in the darkness.

‘No need for violence.’

Oxton’s breathing was ragged. She snatched the boots, started inching toward the door.

‘You may go, in good time.’ In a blast of magical energy, Oxton was paralysed, held upright a few feet above the ground. The air crackled around her ears. ‘You will want to hear what I have to say, Lord Nerevar.’

A figure stepped forward into the dingy light. She wore leather armour, heavily padded gauntlets, as if ready for a fight, and a hood obscuring her face above the mouth. If she hadn’t been holding Oxton by the throat from several yards away, she’d have said she was unarmed. 

‘I bear a message for you, from Dagoth Ur, Awakened Lord of the Sixth House, come to cast down false gods, drive foreigners from the land, and restore the ancient glory of Morrowind.’

Oxton opened her mouth to speak, but found no strength in her lungs.

The figure cracked a hideous smile. In the darkness her lips looked black, a mess of deep cuts.

‘We stand in a time for listeners, outlander, a time in which sleepers shall wake. Dagoth Ur bids you come to Red Mountain. For the friendship and honour that once you shared, he would grant you counsel and power, if only you would pledge that friendship anew. The path to Red Mountain is long, and filled with danger, but if you are worthy, you will find there wisdom, a firm friend, and all the power you need to set the world aright. Now, if you have questions, ask, for our time is short.’

Oxton struggled in the air, legs thrashing like a drowner. ‘Who… the _fuck_… is Nerevar…?’

‘A fascinating proposal. Sadly I do have neither time or inclination to philosophise with you, my Lord. I suppose you have never heard of Lord Dagoth either.’

‘What… _the fuck do you think!?_’ Oxton squeezed out her words, frantic, furious. At the edge of her hearing, she could swear there were shouts from the catacombs.

‘You will learn, soon enough. Though your path to enlightenment will be longer than I feared. No matter.’

Oxton’s mind raced. She had to keep her talking. ‘Y’know… I’m a foreigner, right? How the fuck am I s’posed to drive _myself_ out of this shithole?’

The figure’s mouth shaped disappointment. ‘Vulgarity,’ she tutted, ‘you should unlearn it before you sully my Lord’s presence.’ A heavy slam at the door. ‘Such a shame to waste my last moments on this mortal plane with a fool. Alas.’ Another slam. ‘My time.’ The wood in the door splintered. ‘Is over.’

A knife as wide as a human palm bit into the figure’s throat. She made a hideous gurgle before the breath left her for the last time. Oxton hit the dirt as the magical source dissapated. A tall figure in dark leathers strode into the room, covered in blood from head to toe. She reached her hand to Oxton.

‘Dieu de merde, I knew you’d fuck it up.’

Oxton pulled herself upright, feeling the warm, slick fluid on LaCroix’s arm. She stepped carefully toward the body on the floor, the blood pooling fast.

‘Who was your friend?’ LaCroix called after her, examining the boots Oxton had dropped.

Oxton studied the figure. Her cowl had concealed her identity entirely. How could she even see through that thing? Curiosity got the better of her. With the tip of her dagger, she lifted it off her face.

She staggered back, the blade falling from her hand. LaCroix looked over at the noise as Oxton emptied her stomach in the corner. LaCroix moved toward the body.

The woman had no face. Above the mouth, nothing but unbroken skin.

Cracks of golden light began to materialize across its surface.

Without a sound, the body was enveloped in blinding light.

As it faded, Ana-Amari came charging headlong into the room. ‘What in the name of the gods, the saints and Azura’s hairy cunt is going-’

She found her new guildmates covered in blood and vomit, respectively.

And in the corner of the room, beside a pair of boots enchanted with ancient power, an empty set of bloodsoaked leather armour, and a knife the breadth of a human palm, clotted in black.


	6. Behind the Curtain

Oxton stared off into the night, the High Fane silhouetted against the vast spray of stars. During her brief soujourn in formal education, Oxton had heard tell of Baar Dau, the false moon of Vivec. According to the myth, the elder gods grew jealous of Vivec’s miracles, and cast down a meteor in retribution; in a divine feat of strength, the god-king caught it, only a few hundred feet above the city, binding it in place with powerful magic. For centuries, it was a potent symbol of Vivec’s wisdom, strength, and love for the people of Vvardenfell. As they began to withdraw from public life, however, the organisation of the Temple fell into the hands of mortals. In time, Baar Dau gained a new name, The Ministry of Truth, and Vivec’s symbol of protection became a clenched fist. The false moon hung there above the city of Vivec, an uncanny blotch in the starlight.

In Oxton’s experience, power didn’t corrupt, it only _revealed_: put a sword in someone’s hand and find out who they really are. She glanced over at LaCroix, who had removed her bloodstained leather cuirass and was scrubbing at it diligently under one of the public fountains. Her hair was slick, blood still caked around the roots, the rest of its length matted against her neck and shoulders. Stray rivulets traced the lines of her tattoo. Oxton studied it in the moonlight.

Ana-Amari appeared at her shoulder. ‘One ought not shit where one eats, kitten.’

‘_Buggering_ Mara.’ She put a hand at her heart. ‘I wasn’t - I was just _thinking_.’

The old Khajiit nodded sagely. ‘Of course. A fine subject to meditate upon.’

Oxton groaned loudly. They’d made a hasty exit out of the underworks. Mission accomplished, and all in one piece, praise the saints, but with more questions than answers. ‘Mate, dunno if _you’ve_ been hoisted by the bollocks by some eldritch dipshit lately, but it doesn’t exactly precipitate clarity of mind.’

Ana-Amari made an amused face. ‘_Precipitate_, is it? This one is practicing her twenty-drake words for the lady of the manor?’

‘Ahh piss off, granny.’ She glanced back as LaCroix adjusted her leathers. If there were any remaining stains, the darkness hid what the water couldn’t. She seemed to be drying it with a very small fireball. Ingenious. ‘Anyway, next time you have a near-death experience I ain’t gunna give you grief for…’ she waved a hand, ‘having a pulse.’

‘It is none of Ana-Amari’s business,’ she shrugged. ‘Just sharing a little advice from an old cat who was once not so old and…’ she waved a hand, ‘pulseless.’

LaCroix squeezed water from her hair as she approached. ‘What are you two chattering about?’

‘You.’ Ana-Amari folded her arms. Oxton shot her a pair of wide eyes.

LaCroix was nonplussed. ‘I _am_ rather fascinating. I was hoping, however, you had some thoughts about our assailants. By which I mean _my_ assailants. You are welcome, by the way.’

‘Ana-Amari had you covered,’ the old thief grumbled.

‘There were weird markings on the crates,’ Oxton suggested, ‘thought I’d ask Jobasha about ‘em. Definitely not Thieves’ Guild. You okay, by the way?’ She winced at the memory. ‘Seem to remember you looking a bit… butchery.’

‘It was not my blood,’ she shrugged. ‘Two men attacked me a few minutes after you entered the passage. They opened the door and headed straight for my position. They could not have seen me without powerful magic, and could not have known we were coming tonight. And yet.’

‘The one you killed inside the shrine…’ Oxton fought down a small wave of panic as she thought of it. ‘Sounded like she knew exactly when you were gunna break the door down, right down to the second. Like she was…’

‘Prepared to die?’ LaCroix’s upper lip curled.

Oxton nodded, shivered as a gust of wind rose up from the sea. ‘Bloody freezing out here, innit.’

‘Just so. We should go our separate ways for now, easier to avoid the guards. I have a friend in the St Olms canton who doesn’t mind unexpected callers, and I will deliver the goods to Jobasha’s contact in Ebonheart before dawn.’

‘Fine,’ Ana-Amari exhaled. ‘We shall meet this one at the bookshop tomorrow evening. Jobasha may have some answers for us.’ She frowned. ‘This one’s hand is bleeding.’

A messy dribble was seeping across the assassin’s hand. ‘Here, I’ve got some juice left,’ Oxton offered, ‘hold still.’

She took LaCroix’s hand in her own and pressed down on the wound with her thumbs, the blood oozing hot and slow. She closed her eyes and whispered a few words of the Old Tongues, as a pale glow passed over the wound. LaCroix’s breath was visible in the cool air as she exhaled.

LaCroix blinked, then politely, but firmly, extracted her hand. She searched for words for a second, executed a rather perfunctory bow, turned on her heels, and was swiftly lost in the shadows.

Ana-Amari smirked at Oxton, fuzzy eyebrows raised.

‘I don’t wanna hear it mate.’

The den-mother started singing, sotto voce, a Khajiit folk tune. ‘_The autumn moon was full of light, my eyes beheld a wondrous sight_...’

‘Fuck me I wish I knew which way we were going.’

‘_...magicka was on the wind that niiiiiiight…_’

‘...’

‘Come along, kitten, Ana-Amari knows you know the words.’

‘...fine.’

Treading lightly between the shadows, following the docklands route from St Delyn to the Foreign Quarter, two thieves performed, quiet as rats, a two-part harmony rendition of _Seven Nights in Rawl’kha_, including three verses Oxton had never heard before, and was in no hurry to hear again.

* * *

Ah, friend. You have been ever so indulgent, blessings on your heart. I have travelled far and wide on this little archipelago named Vvardenfell, grown to love its people and its secrets, and it warms me to share a little of this love with you. I’d wager you love it too, to allow me to prattle on so ceaselessly. Perhaps you are simply too curious, or too polite, to say otherwise. Kudos to your elders.

Perhaps my latest reports of unholy cults and living gods, however, have begun to test your disbelief. I can only assure you that we have barely scratched the surface of Vvardenfell’s oddity. Have you heard of the millenia-old sorcerers living in castles made of giant mushrooms? I’ve met them. Terrifying, but excellent conversationalists. Perhaps the dwarven ruins, where soulless automatons patrol the sunken corridors, centuries after their masters’ disappearance? No word of a lie. The city of Ald’ruhn, whose manor district is founded within the shell of an ancient land-crab, a beast so huge it once ruled the entire island?

Well, even I have trouble swallowing that one. The district is an _engineering _marvel, certainly, and one can see how crabs and bonecraft are powerful icons to the settled Dunmer, how the powerful metaphor of a new culture growing within the old might calcify into an accepted truth.

Let us leave that to the philosophers. Whatever the case, it was to Ald’ruhn, the Dunmer seat of power north of the occupied Imperial lands, that Tholer Saryoni arrived, the archcanon of the Tribunal Temple in the guise of a common pilgrim. A full day’s hike from Balmora, and two in as many days: Saryoni was sure she would pay for it come morning.

It had been many years since she last walked the broad stone streets of slate-grey Ald’ruhn, the grandest city of the ashlands, and time had not been kind. The city walls were sparsely manned, and in obvious disrepair, large sections crumbling into constituent bricks. Through the gaps, Saryoni could see small houses built from suspiciously similar stones.

Had she not been such a conscientious citizen, and had her knees not been complaining quite so bitterly, it would have been child’s play to scramble over the rubble and into the city proper. She strolled round to the main gate to present her papers, where a pair of bored-looking guards leaned on their spears, chatting amiably. The broad wooden gates had been propped open by a small stack of loose masonry. It looked like it had been thus for some time. Saryoni looked up at the watchtowers, apparently unmanned. 

‘Evening, auntie,’ The younger of the guards touched her helmet in greeting. ‘Welcome to Ald’ruhn. What’s left of it!’ She smiled broadly at her colleague.

‘Good evening, my lady,’ Saryoni replied, digging through her satchel and removing a small scroll with the temple seal. ‘Here you are, I trust it is in order.’ She held it out politely.

‘Mm, very good,’ the guard nodded impassively at it. ‘Enjoy your time in Ald’ruhn, auntie.’

Saryoni hesitated, then placed the scroll back in her bag. She looked to the other guard, a much older Dunmer, who made a sympathetic face. ‘We don’t get many folk trying to get in, these days, sister,’ he explained. ‘Hope it’s not honest work you’re looking for.’

‘Oh no, I’m on pilgrimage to the north. I was planning to restock and rest for a day or two at the temple.’

The guards shared a look. The younger woman spoke first, ‘I… wouldn’t recommend that, auntie, mightn’t be safe, woman your age-’

‘Lavane Hlas! Manners.’ The old boy sounded disappointed in her. Saryoni wondered if they were related. ‘Sorry, sister, doesn’t know _she’ll_ be old some day.’

‘I take it in the spirit it was given,’ Saryoni smiled.

‘Well, what the young’un was _trying_ to say, is that the Temple’s a bit overstretched just now. Couple days ago, bunch of workers came back from the mines with heart-blight, infirmary’s overflowing. They don’t _reckon_ it’s contagious, but it’s healers only for the foreseeable.’

‘There’s cheap beds at the Rat in the Pot and the Ald Skar Inn, if you’re looking,’ the younger one chimed in. ‘Rat’s cheaper, but folk reckon it’s a thieves’ guild dive, so…’

‘Thank you, miss Hlas, that’s very helpful. I’ll head to the temple, first. My restoration skills are a touch rusty, but it may be better than nothing.’

The older guard blew out his cheeks, _rather you than me_. ‘Gods know we need helping hands, b’vek. Three watch over you, sister.’

‘And you.’ She paused. ‘Pardon my curiosity, but you don’t seem like regular guardsmen...’

The old Dunmer barked a laugh. ‘You ain’t wrong, miss. Been years since I could run the length of meself without hacking up a lung.’

‘This is my first tour of service,’ said the youngster, standing to attention. ‘Ever since the storms got bad, imperials don’t come out of their fort any more, nobody was minding the place. So a bunch of us, labourers mostly, got together…’

‘Drew up a rota. Just about every ‘guard’ in town’s a part-timer, but we know the place and the folk better’n the imps ever did. Mostly just catching rats and divvying up the food rations, but it beats the piss out of crawling around mineshafts. Pardon my Breton.’

‘Honestly, seems like there’s _less_ fuss on the streets now the army’s sodded off.’ The young guard frowned. ‘Don’t tell ‘em I said that, mind.’

Saryoni promised, and bade them farewell. Over her shoulder, the guards began to swap old stories of their brushes with the ‘real’ law.

The temple was halfway between the main gate and the manor district, and Saryoni encountered few other souls along the way. A huddle of pipe-smokers were gathered outside an inn, another guard pushed a barrow full of root vegetables toward the residential district, a couple of the rats darted past her into an alley. She gave them her blessing.

Unlike its counterparts to the south, Ald’ruhn had grown slowly and purposefully, the main thoroughfares were broad and well maintained, and rough sleepers were conspicuous by their absence. A cloth banner had been draped across the archway into the temple compound, marked only with a large, black X. She hadn’t seen such a thing in many years. She uttered a prayer to Saint Seryn, a hero of hers as a novice: Seryn the Merciful had the power to cure all known diseases, at the price of taking the disease upon herself. She felt Seryn standing by her side, strengthening her will. She pushed open the door.

The quiet outside belied the industry within the temple’s walls. Some masked figures in long white robes conferred in a corner. Through a door, Saryoni could see rows of beds, the sound of wretched coughing spilling out. An older figure, working slowly, passing a wet cloth around a doorframe, while another in novice’s robes scrubbed the floor. The movement of bodies, the sound of many voices, the smell of sweat and refuse and burning incense engulfed her senses, so that Saryoni took a second to notice she was being spoken to.

‘I’m… sorry?’

A middle-aged clerk was sitting behind a desk, copying notes into a ledger. She was looking expectantly at Saryoni. ‘I said, just hold on where you are, love. We’re trying to keep the patients safe, so if you ain’t here to do some healing…?’

‘Oh! Yes, I’m a, uh, healer from Vivec, I thought I might be of service, sister.’

‘Oooh, _Vivec_, is it? Well, we won’t hold that against you, love, any port in a storm, eh?’ She smiled broadly. ‘Let’s get you some gear, then.’ She pushed herself to her feet and crossed the vestibule briskly, knocking on a door with _MUD ROOM_ hastily daubed across it. The lady smiled as she opened the vacant room. ‘Bit of an in-joke, love. Just put your travelling gear to one side and grab a robe, a mask, and some gloves. Should have summat in your size.’

Saryoni took a second to regain her bearings.

The lady smiled. ‘Take your time, love, I know it’s a lot.’

Saryoni blushed. ‘I apologise, I… don’t know what I expected.’

‘Neither did we!’ She laughed, a big booming bell of a laugh. ‘G’on now, time’s wasting.’

Saryoni obliged. The room was little more than a storage cupboard. Opposite the door was a series of shelves, marked at intervals with the initials of, she supposed, the various clergy on shift. Behind the mess of robes, footwear and satchels, the wall was covered in what looked like fresh charcoal etchings - little caricatures, passages of scripture, witticisms in the script of old Aldmeris. A well-thumbed copy of _The Consolations of Prayer_ sat on top of a truly battered _Blue Book of Riddles_. Saryoni lifted the latter. She was astonished they still printed them: it had its heyday when she was still in training. She leafed through it. An amateur binding, by the looks of things: a good third of the pages at the rear of the book were blank. Toward the end, however, several pages had been filled by hand, by various authors, with a series of new riddles, and other… marginalia.

Saryoni’s eyebrows raised, rather involuntarily. My goodness.

She changed quickly and headed outside.

‘Ahh there you are, duck, starting to think you’d lost the door. You’ll be joining me in the standard ward the night. Don’t want you in with the miners if we can avoid it.’

‘Of course. I have some experience healing common ailments, though I’m a touch out of practice.’

‘Join the club. Name’s Folvys Andalor, by the way. The lasses call me Flo.’

Saryoni smiled behind her mask. ‘Llevana. Llevana Maesa.’

Flo paused at a door. ‘Well, Llevana Maesa, take a wee breather with me here, love. It’ll be your last one for a spell. Fancy a prayer?’

Saryoni nodded and held her hands palms upward, eyes closed, head bowed. ‘By the Three,’ she intoned, ‘grant us the shield of Saint Seryn, that our hearts may be pure. Grant us the benediction of Saint Olms, that our hands may be guided by grace. And grant us the rock of St Llothis, that our will may not waver. The word is Almsivi.’

‘The word is Almsivi,’ echoed Flo with a sigh. ‘B’vek, you’re good at that, pet. Right line of work, I’d say. Ready?’

Saryoni nodded, and stepped inside.

* * *

The next several hours were a blur.

Healing a patient of even a common ailment is no simple matter, and I am no expert in the arcane arts to lecture you on the whys and wherefores of casting out maladies. The healers of my acquaintance assure me, however, that it takes care, and attention, and a quality of will that treats the bodies of others as if they were more precious than rubies, as if we lived in a world in which they truly were.

One imagines this is why healers are rarely captains of industry.

In any event, Saryoni experienced, for the first time in many years, an evening in which her every move was decided for her. There was no time to remember her aching joints, or her growing hunger; only the names of the dozen or so patients, the details of their sicknesses, the means to do what one could, and the time to do it.

The moons were at their zenith by the time Saryoni felt a hand on her arm, Flo inviting her to the kitchen for a little respite. She’d long since lost track of time.

The kitchen was a long, narrow room, with a wood-burning stove and a hearth and cauldron down one wall, a long table with benches on the other. A pot, with a thickened broth, steamed gently on the stovetop. Flo ladled out two hearty helpings and invited Saryoni to sit.

‘Oof,’ she exhaled. ‘Gods know how you’re managing all that after a day’s hike, love. Me gams’re killing me.’

‘I’m used to being on my feet,’ Saryoni replied. That, at least, was no lie.

‘That so.’ Flo took a large mouthful of her soup and savoured it. ‘Ah, proper stuff that. Danoso, our apothecary, he keeps a herb garden. Amazing what you can do with ash yams and a little culinary imagination.’ She took another taste. ‘Mm. What did you say you did in Vivec, love?’

Saryoni cast an eye over her shoulder. The only sound was the irregular bubbling of the pot, and indistinct conversation from the wards. ‘Oh,’ she shrugged, ‘I work in the Library now, clerical duties mostly, nothing glamorous.’

‘Ahh, I always fancied seeing that Library down there. Our stacks are a bit meagre, these days. Reckon the Fighters’ Guild’s got better stock.’ She looked at Saryoni. ‘So, you’ll know Berel Sarethan?’

Saryoni blinked. Tried to wash the tiredness from her mind.

‘He’s a northerner, y’know,’ Flo continued, ‘we never forget our own.’

_Gods above and below, what was his name._ Saryoni put down her spoon, feeling the pricks of sweat forming on her skin. ‘_Balver_ Sarethan.’ The name left her tongue before it registered in her mind.

Flo smiled. ‘Aye, that’s the one. Glad he’s thriving.’ She finished her bowl and pushed it a little in front of her. She leaned in a little closer to Saryoni, met her eyes. Saryoni paused, spoon halfway to her mouth. ‘Listen, love,’ Flo continued, ‘it ain’t my business, but… if you’re in some trouble and needing owt from us, you’ve only to say-’

Saryoni froze. ‘What - I’m not…’

Flo held up a hand. ‘It’s alright, lass. You don’t owe me no explanations. Vivec helps those who help their neighbours, eh?’

Saryoni felt terribly tired all of a sudden. Her curiosity got the better of her. ‘What gave it away?’

Flo leaned back and laughed warmly, little lines creasing round her eyes. ‘Well, you talk like the bloody Duke of Ebonheart for one. Second, them travelling robes are fresh out the tailor’s, and a right quality one at that. Three: you need a better cover name, love. Everyone up here knows Maesa’s an ashlander name, and if you’re an ashlander, I’m the bloody archcanon.’

Saryoni couldn’t argue with that. ‘I should be taking notes.’

Flo shrugged. ‘If you need to lay low for a while you’ve friends here, eh.’

‘It’s nothing so dramatic, sister, but your kindness does me good. I’m going to see my mother up north, and I’d rather no one know about it.’ She considered this. ‘Better to keep all of this to yourself, honestly. I apologise for placing this burden on you.’

‘Been a while since anyone came round here looking for _my_ insights, love,’ she laughed. ‘And by Vivec themself, you’ve polished your accent right proper if your mam’s from up here.’

‘I left when I was young. It’s been a while since… since my last visit.’

‘It’ll all come flooding back, don’t you fret. Like riding a guar.’ She polished off her second bowl of broth and stood. ‘So. I’ve a few hours left, but you look like you need your bed.’

She rubbed her brow, bobbed her head in agreement.

‘Head over to the Ald Skar Inn, behind the bookshop in the square. Ask for Boderi. They’ll sort you out.’

Saryoni thanked her. Flo smiled and headed for the door. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon, Flo,’ she called after her.

She turned. ‘Well. S’pose I’ll see you then. Sleep tight, love.’ She rapped the doorframe with a knuckle, and headed back to the ward.

Saryoni hardly had the energy to marshall her thoughts, let alone her feelings. She settled for finishing her soup and finding any sort of horizontal surface. _Two days on the road and itching for a bed?_ _You’ve gotten soft, Tholer_.

She made a mental note to send a shipment of books to every temple in Vvardenfell, as soon as she returned to the capital. And a delegation to the Council at Ebonheart. All that gold and so little food?

As she ferried her bowl back to the sink, Tholer Saryoni felt the strength return to her limbs. Life was better with a plan. 

The sun rose over Ald’ruhn as she crossed the empty square alone.

* * *

‘So what is this one’s plan, exactly?’ Jobasha was ferrying a large kettle of something herbal from the kitchenette. The sun cast buttery light across the room, where Ana-Amari basked, leaning back in her chair, unshod feet resting on the table. Jobasha brushed them aside with an elbow.

‘Rude.’

‘_Jobasha_ is rude. Unlike some people, Jobasha has _work_.’

‘Jobasha says that as if we did not recover a priceless artefact seven hours ago,’ Ana-Amari growled, not opening her eye.

‘If by ‘priceless’ this one means ‘currently en route to our contact in Ebonheart for immediate erasure from the mortal plane’, then, certainly. When this one brings Jobasha another table and a room big enough to put it in, this one’s feet may rest where they please. Now. Move.’

She rose slowly, looming ever so slightly over her diminutive friend, then stepping over Oxton to prop herself up on Jobasha’s bed. The previous night, Oxton had practically collapsed on the fur rug in the middle of the room. The other two procured blankets and a spare pillow, and she’d hardly stirred since.

‘How is she?’ Jobasha enquired over his shoulder, laying out the day’s orders on his desk.

Ana-Amari inspected her apprentice. ‘She’ll live. Nasty shock. Had a more adventurous week than is strictly necessary.’

He turned in his chair. ‘If this one needs healers she should not be on Jobasha’s floor.’

‘This one needs _rest_, friend Jobasha.’ She sighed. ‘And some entertainment. Something to take one’s mind off ghosts and ghouls and beshitten prophecies.’

‘It sounds like Ana-Amari needs someone with access to ancient and forgotten knowledge. Someone extremely patient, and very handsome, whose rates are not unreasonable.’

‘This is extortion.’

‘Ana-Amari is literally sitting on Jobasha’s bed.’

‘Hm. I suppose we _are_ all in this together, clever kitten. Fine.’ She sighed. ‘The hairball and I will work tonight, bring Jobasha what we find, and we shall all move forward as one in this inspirational partnership.’

‘And as a sign of goodwill and faith in friend Ana-Amari’s skills, Jobasha will consult his holdings and arrange a meeting with his contacts in the Temple this afternoon. This design, with all the circles, that you found on the crates is not familiar to me, perhaps they can advise.'

‘How does this heathen have contacts in the Temple?’

‘Glad you asked, friend Ana-Amari,’ Jobasha made himself comfortable. ‘Despite their best efforts to appear otherwise, the Tribunal Temple is comprised of several warring factions, whose beliefs surrounding the true nature of the Tribunal’s divinity have caused schisms for many centuries. A sect known as the Dissident Priests contends that-’

‘Holy Phynaster’s saggy bollocks, why are you two so _loud_,’ came a voice from the floor.

‘Oh. Good afternoon, kitten.’

Jobasha observed his restive guest. ‘Ah. This might be of interest to you, actually. The reason these particular Priests are so Dissident concerns their faith in Lord Nerevar and his reincarnation. The same Lord Nerevar your cultist named you.’

Oxton rolled on her back and rubbed her hands on her face. ‘I don’t _feel_ reincarnated.’

'How would one know, kitten?’

‘Fair point.’

Jobasha chewed a claw. ‘Just playing Malacath’s advocate here, but… you are freed from incarceration by the Imperials, with the seal of the emperor, no less -’

‘Someone’s been blabbing,’ Oxton screwed up her face toward Ana-Amari.

'Jobasha is family,’ she shrugged, ‘I have more cause to trust him than you, little one.’

‘Yeah, fine, whatever.’ She got up and hitched up her pants. ‘You got something hot? I’m parched.’

‘Tea in the kettle, cups in the cupboard,’ Jobasha pointed. ‘My point is, does it not strike this one as peculiar that two such strange happenings come so hot on each other’s heels?’

Oxton blew on her tea. The brew’s scent was earthy, crisp, like rain in summer. ‘Mate, I can’t remember the last time summat _normal_ happened. You’re saying the cultists are working with the imps _and_ the Temple?’

Jobasha spat the chewed claw into the corner. ‘Seems unlikely, but your story is made of nothing but unlikelinesses. Anything else we should know about?’

The hot tea brought strength to Oxton’s bones. As she flexed her fingers, she remembered the cursed ring. In the whirlwind of the previous days, it had seemed too trifling to pay much mind. ‘Uh, might be nothing, but this ring’s kinda… stuck to my finger.’

Jobasha’s ears pricked up. He waved her closer, peering at the design down his glasses. ‘_Stuck_, you say. _Very_ peculiar. This design…’ He hopped to his feet and jogged up the stairs. Oxton looked at Ana-Amari, who shrugged, enjoying the spectacle.

Jobasha quickly returned with a small, very old book. ‘_Nerevar Moon and Star_’, he read, ‘the icons are quite distinct.’ He held the book open at an etching: a ring, the same size as Oxton’s, but far more elaborate: the ring in the book looked fit for a duke, all wrought looping ironwork and embedded jewels. Oxton held hers up for comparison.

‘Huh. Maybe mine’s a knock-off.’

‘Maybe.’ Jobasha studied them both. ‘The craftwork is impressive, and the symbols match, but is hardly a pinch on the original. More imperial shenanigans, perhaps. How did you come upon it?’

‘Found it,’ Oxton said. There was a tightness in her chest.

Jobasha raised his eyebrows. ‘_Found_ it. And where did you find it, pray tell?’

Oxton knocked back her tea, hissing as the heat singed her tongue. ‘Look, I don’t much like where this is going…’

Ana-Amari stood and placed a paw on her shoulder. ‘The imps are masters of smoke and daggers, kitten. Forging a cursed ring would be child’s play.’

‘It _would_ make sense if they were responsible, politically speaking,’ Jobasha nodded. ‘The only true threat to their hegemony in Vvardenfell is the Temple. The Great Houses are greatly dependent on their trade lines, the Ashlanders are hardly worth thinking of, and the Empire is well aware of Temple fractiousness. Exploiting such schisms would be, as you say, all but effortless, and very advantageous.’ He pondered it for a second and chuckled to himself. ‘An _outlander_ too. Quite brilliant, tactically speaking.’

‘I’m right fucking here, mate.’ Oxton was exasperated.

‘Jobasha apologises.’ He raised his paws. ‘It is much to consider.’

‘So this is the emperor’s freedom, eh? Got me hopes up for fuck all.’ Oxton chose not to think too hard about her dreams, or the encounter in the tavern, or the lady in the blue-green dress. She contemplated her feet. She felt an arm round her shoulders.

‘Ana-Amari has not lived this long by throwing her spoon in the corner, kitten. Heh?’ She gave Oxton an affectionate slap on the cheek. ‘Ana-Amari knows what will lift this one’s spirits.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Oxton smirked, ‘I heard you settling contracts on my behalf.’

‘As Ana-Amari’s den-mother did for her. A fine tradition.’

‘If dockworkers’ bosses try this they wake up with no teeth,’ Jobasha noted, head still in his book.

Ana-Amari ignored him. ‘There is a manor in the St Olms plaza, kitten. A very bad man lives in this manor. A very bad, very rich man.’

‘Sold.’ Oxton strapped on her boots. ‘Got a powerful hunger on me, though.’

‘Say no more.’ Ana-Amari smiled, gathering her tools. ‘We will see friend Jobasha again in the small hours, yes?’

Jobasha rolled his eyes. ‘When else? It is not like Jobasha has a business to run.’

Oxton stopped halfway up the stairs. ‘I meant to ask about that. When do you actually get customers? This is, like, a _shop_, right?’

‘This one would prefer to sleep in the canalworks?’

Oxton held up her hands. Ana-Amari gave her a gentle nudge in the right direction. ‘We shall be discreet, friend Jobasha.’

‘Of course,’ he said, settling back to his paperwork. ‘Try not to draw too much attention to yourselves.’

‘What do you take us for, dear friend Jobasha?’ Ana-Amari feigned woundedness. ‘A troupe of amateurs?’

* * *

The cantons were alive. The last warm days before the great hunkering down for winter, the crowds of pilgrims and sightseers had swarmed to the outer walkways of every quarter of Vivec City, stone balconies as broad as any street in Balmora. Compared with the carnivals she’d known in High Rock, the feast of Llothis seemed fairly tame - but perhaps the real party was somewhere else. It was then the true scale of the place truly dawned on her. Seven cantons, each five or six storeys high, each storey with dozens of stores and apartments and offices...

She was struck by a wave of acute vertigo. She placed a hand against a wall for balance.

Ana-Amari turned. ‘What is the matter, kitten? The dumplings disagree with you?’

Quite the opposite. The den-mother had treated her to a local delicacy, a blend of finely diced carrots, onions and cabbage, a little ginger root for flavour, all battered and shallow-fried. The morning after being battered by malevolent magical energy is not unlike a bad hangover (a wine hangover specifically, in Oxton’s experience), and the dose of veg and salt was as good as a day at the bathhouse.

Oxton gave an encouraging grimace. ‘S’fine. _Crikey_, it’s a big city.’

Ana-Amari frowned. ‘Perhaps it was a mistake to get back to work so soon. There are very refreshing walks around the bay...’

‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ Oxton breathed. ‘Rather not be alone with my thoughts, honestly.’

‘It is this one’s decision, but Ana-Amari needs you well tonight.’

‘I’m well. Look.’ She took a glance down the walkway, spotting a pair of well-to-do folk coming the opposite direction, all robes and rings. She carelessly strolled their direction, clumsily bumping an elbow and apologising profusely in her plummiest accent. After allowing some time and distance to pass between her and her marks, she presented the little coin purse to her den-mother.

‘That’s for breakfast.’

Ana-Amari jutted her jaw as she appraised her performance, tucking the purse into an inner pocket. ‘This one can tie her bootlaces, a true marvel. Come on, it is not far to St Olms.’

The closer to the Temple canton they got, the denser the crowds. Small rucks had formed at regular intervals, where harassed-looking priests gave sermons to the faithful throng, hawkers moving smilingly through the masses offering flowers, or food, or relics of questionable origin. Everybody has to make a living, Oxton supposed. Poor folk aren’t easier to rip off - quite the opposite, when your choices are being canny or being hungry - it’s just that rich folk require a much higher caliber of scam, like forging whole paintings or grifting investments into fake companies. Real artisan work, often by many hands.

Oxton doubted she’d ever pull off that kind of stunt. She was a born improviser, and win, lose or draw, you only get one shot at the nobility.

There was some respite in ascending the floors toward the plaza. Ana-Amari paused on the topmost balcony, inviting Oxton to join her. The sun was setting behind the hills to the west, casting dazzling beams over the surface of the bay, long, hazy shadows across the cantons, and a rich swatch of pink across the sky. The bells began to ring for vespers. Oxton leaned a little over the balcony edge, watching the crowd beginning to disperse, like rice passing through holes in a sack.

Among the motley crowd, she noticed one figure standing quite still, head tilted up toward the upper levels. The pilgrims flowed past them like water round a rock. Oxton held a hand up to her forehead to keep the dusk sunlight from her eyes, but they were gone. Oxton squeezed her eyes shut, gave one last look at the crowd below, then hurried up the steps into the plaza.

Her den-mother had gone a little ahead, and secured herself a spot beneath one of the ornamental trees in the centre of the square. She was chewing lazily on some fruit. Oxton joined her.

‘Been here before?’

‘Not in my puff.’

‘The mark is the manor in the far corner.’ She nodded toward the grand building in the corner, its architecture distinct from the traditional Dunmer style of the others: it reminded Oxton of Balmora’s High Town. There was quite a large raised platform in front of it, several people busying themselves constructing what looked like staging for a play. ‘It belongs to Yngling Half-Troll.’

‘Fuck off. There’s no way that’s his name. What’s the other half of him, baked beans?’

Ana-Amari shrugged. ‘He says it is his name, and who is Ana-Amari to gainsay him? He is a councilor of House Hlaalu, a very big cheese. He is also as crooked as a barrel of fish hooks.’

‘Oh yeah? What’s his game?’

‘Solicited fifty thousand drakes from the Archcanon for renovations to the temple on the Hlaalu canton, used it to strengthen his business interests instead.’

Oxton laughed in disbelief. ‘Fuck me. If he ain’t a guild member he should be.’

Ana-Amari grinned. ‘Precisely. That one operates outside our jurisdiction. A grave slight to our honor which cannot be overlooked.’

‘Nice.’

She touched her forehead in gratitude. ‘So. Tonight, Half-Troll hosts a theatrical spectacle in his courtyard, a mystery play in seven acts from the _Cantatas of Vivec_.’

Oxton looked at her blankly, chewing her fruit.

‘Jobasha told me about it. Tonight’s performance,’ she read from a handbill, ‘is _The Seven Graces_, ‘they trace the evolution of Lord Vivec from a foolish mortal to an enlightened divine, defending, protecting, and educating his Dunmer people. Through his long life, his humility, and his unconquerable spirit, he attained the wisdom of _The Seven Graces_.’

Oxton made snoring noises.

‘We are not here to pass aesthetic judgements, kitten. The players are using the manor as changing rooms. We shall use this as cover to access the basement, there to fill our boots and exit, swift and quiet as swallows.’

‘They keep the good stuff in the basement?’

‘No. This is a job for salary, not for retirement, much as Ana-Amari would it were so. Low risk, low reward, no drama.’

‘Right, no need for a song and dance.’

‘Precisely.’

‘Just wait in the wings, hit our marks, stay out of the spotlight.’

‘...’

‘Acting.’

‘Periodically, Ana-Amari must remind herself why she has not handed you in.’

‘You get a sense of fulfillment from mentorship?’

‘Is _that_ what that is. Ana-Amari was worried she was getting an ulcer.’ A rumbling sound caught her attention: a pair of workers had rolled up to the courtyard with a cartload of wine. They looked exhausted. It was a long way up, and holy wine weighs no less than the regular stuff. Ana-Amari nodded toward them. ‘Follow my lead.’

The carters had taken the load off their feet, and were resting their backs against the wheel. Ana-Amari approached them. ‘Good evening, gents. You’re delivering to Yngling Manor? Perhaps we could-’

The first carter held up a hand. ‘Nah, nah. We’re good, just getting a breather. Thanks though.’

Ana-Amari blinked. ‘It would be no problem, we know the place well-’

‘Yeah, no, it’s fine,’ interjected the second. ‘We’ve got it covered, okay?’

Oxton stepped in. ‘Alright, lads, how we doing? Helluva day for hauling wine, eh?’

The first carter chuckled. ‘I smell like a pig’s armpit, mate. You with this… lady?’

Ana-Amari’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Oxton pretended not to notice. ‘Who, J’Danna here? Nah mate, she lives local.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘On the canals, y’know.’

The second carter looked affronted. ‘Aw shit, sorry mate,’ he said to Ana-Amari. ‘Thought you was a thief or summat.’

‘It’s no worries! I look after her some days.’ A _brilliant_ idea occurred to Oxton. ‘Here, why don’t we unload it together? Me and her, like, keep each other company.’

‘Didn’t fancy lugging this pish down another flight of stairs, to be honest. Here,’ the first carter fished out a few coppers. ‘Get yourself something hot, love. None of that moon sugar, mind.’ He nodded wisely.

Ana-Amari was so calm she could have combusted. ‘Three blessings, muth’sera.’

‘Nah, nah, we all have to do our bit for the less fortunate.’

Oxton hopped up on the cart before her den-mother disemboweled him. They quickly hoisted down a cask as the carters waved them off. Passing through the courtyard, the stage looked very close to completion, and a small crowd had already gathered. Behind the curtains, a ramp led from the stage directly to the manor’s front door, where a large stagehand waved the two thieves in, weaving past a series of frantic actors in elaborate robes and huge theatrical masks. One performer’s headwear covered them from head to knees: perhaps a demon, judging by the color and expression. Ana-Amari nodded toward the cellar, pushing it open with her foot. Oxton shimmied through and let it swing shut behind her. The darkness was cool, and silent.

‘Fucking _J’Danna_??’ Ana-Amari hissed.

‘Is that not a Khajiit name? Sure I met a J’Danna once.’

‘Gods fucking below. I don’t know who is worse, you or those dipshits on the cart. Fucking _moon sugar_.’

‘I mean, there _are_ a lot of Khajiit addicts kicking about, den-gran.’

Ana-Amari sighed violently. ‘When we return to friend Jobasha’s store, you are reading his entire stock on systemic deprivation.’

‘I never read a lot of theory.’

‘I know.’

They reached the bottom of the stairs. Ana-Amari lit a small magical flame in her palm and let it drift toward the low ceiling. The manor had enough food to survive a siege. Ana-Amari pointed to a dark oblong shape in the corner.

‘There, just as my informant said. A lockbox. Should have more than enough of what we need.’ She parked herself in front of it, cross-legged, and took out her tools. ‘Numbskull kitten, make yourself useful and grab anything else that looks shiny and light and like it will not be missed.’

Oxton surveyed the room, pulling a sackcloth bag off a hook. She inspected a few of the fancier-looking bottles of brandywine and bagged them. A book on swordplay stood out, perhaps something nice for Jobasha. Then she noticed a bureau. Distinctly out of place, tucked into an alcove at the furthest point from the door. She strapped the bag shut and hitched it over her shoulder. There was a small, leatherbound book on the tabletop, with a sheet of very expensive paper tucked under the cover. Oxton opened it. In a fine hand were the words:

‘Ser Yngling,

I must admit that I was surprised by your request for funds to repair the House Hlaalu Temple in Vivec City. Before our meeting last week I knew only that you were an outlander and not a member of our Temple. Once again, I ask that you forgive me for heeding to false rumors. Now that I have met you, I am sure that your motives are pure, and you can restore the Temple to its former glory.

House Hlaalu has neglected its Temple in Vivec for many years and it is in a state of disrepair. Given the difficulty of this restoration, we would be pleased to contribute 50,000 drakes to your efforts.

Archcanon Saryoni'

In the ledger were rows upon rows of transactions, orders, names of contacts and companies, columns upon columns of numbers and valuations, a few of which were truly eye watering, and none of which appeared to be for construction materials, at least not in Vivec. Several pages later, in the bottom right hand corner, was the number fifty thousand.

‘Fuck me running.’

Oxton took a second to process the significance of the documents in her hands. A voice shook her back to her senses.

‘What is it kitten? Good news for your den-mother? Ana-Amari has just about...’ - a satisfying _clunk_ \- ‘cracked it. Now, we take a _handful _of coin and jewels, yes? Not so much the entire fucking garrison falls on our heads.’

‘I, uh, think I found something.’

Ana-Amari was tucking her bounty into various ingenious pockets about her person. ‘Oh yes?’

She showed her. Ana-Amari took a second. ‘Fuck me running.’

A commotion at the door.

‘_Shit!_’

Ana-Amari quickly snuffed out the magical light and flattened herself against the wall.

Someone was descending the staircase.

‘Anyone down here?’ One of the carters.

‘You sure they didn’t just sod off?’ An unknown voice. One of Half-Troll’s servants, maybe.

‘Dunno, just thought I'd check. Didn't see them come back out.’

The thieves held their breath.

Oxton turned to her den-mother. She held up a hand. In thieves’ cant she spelled out: _do you trust me?_

Ana-Amari’s eyes were wide, glinting in the darkness. She shook her head.

Oxton shrugged and grabbed her by the shoulders. They disappeared in a flash of lilac light.

The loud cursing of two men was suddenly coming from a very different direction. The thieves fell from several feet off the ground into a painful heap. Several very dramatic gasps alerted them that they’d been spotted. Oxton looked up into a semi-circle of carved wooden faces in various states of theatrical distress.

Ana-Amari snapped into action first, hobbling to her feet and careening out the door. On instinct, Oxton grabbed a spare mask and started fitting it. It was only then she realised she still had the ledger in her hand. She was out the door. _How the fuck do they see in these things!?_ As the mask finally slipped into place, she felt herself run headfirst into a large, heavy, cloth screen.

There was a large communal gasp as she tumbled through the curtains, followed by a general hubbub that ranged from nervous laughter to indignant confusion. As Oxton got to her feet, and the heavy mask finally permitted her vision, she saw something that shook her to the core. Something that she could hardly have imagined. The worst nightmare of any jobbing thief.

She was on stage. She had an audience of hundreds.

They all seemed rather curious about she would do next.


	7. Leaves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here friend, take these. Perhaps a thing or two in my tale might sound quite alien to your ears. These papers should ably fill any gaps I happen to leave.
> 
> https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Morrowind  
https://www.imperial-library.info/sites/default/files/imagecache/node-gallery-display/gallery_files/mapmorrenormous.jpg

A small room with two long wooden tables. The tables are peppered with carved initials, and a smattering of unidentifiable stains older than any of the students, maybe some of the teachers. Hanging on one wall are three beige tapestries, the icons of Almsivi faded by decades of sunlight: _Alm_ for Almalexia, Lady of Mercy; _Si_ for Sotha Sil, Lord of Knowledge; _Vi_ for Vivec, Warrior-Poet. At the back, a shelf with eight worn hymnals holding each other upright, and two colourful redware flowerpots, fire ferns in perennial bloom. The tables face a chalkboard, a large grey slate covered in chalk script of Old Aldmeris, words from the homilies of Lord Vivec.

An old Dunmer woman stands at the front, reading names off a list. There are eight young people at the long wooden tables, answering in turn. The woman smiles as she speaks each name: a beloved formality.

‘Tralas Rendas.’

‘Present.’ Rendas is trying to ignore an itch around the collar of his robe.

‘Addut-Lamanu.’

A lanky young woman listlessly raises an arm, covered elbow to wrist in swirling blue ashlander tattoos.

‘Feet, Addut-Lamanu.’

She sighs wearily, but removes her boots from the tabletop.

There is only one name left on the list. ‘Tholer Maesa,’ the woman beams indulgently at her youngest student, her notebook open, quill standing ready in the inkwell.

‘Here, Mistress Drath.’

A low snort from the row behind her. Drath sighs at the culprit. Tholer ignores it. They both know there is little to be gained in pursuing the matter.

Drath turns to the board. ‘Today,’ she begins, moving a stick of chalk across its surface with practiced efficiency, ‘we’ll do what we’ve been looking forward to all semester, and, seeing how well behaved you’ve been,’ she turned and gave Addut-Lamanu a sly nod, ‘_mostly_, we’ll have that free discussion I’ve been threatening you with.’

She stands aside. On the board, in the angular script of Old Almeris, one word: ‘DIVINITY’. Noises of approval from the students, the word _finally_ rising above the murmurs. Tholer looks uncertain, flips to the index of her textbook for guidance.

‘You can put your books away, novices. They are but paper, and paper only knows what people tell it. _So_,’ she eases herself into the hard wooden chair at the front of the room, ‘let’s start with the easy ones. How did the Tribunal become gods?’

Tholer raises her hand. Drath nods. ‘The Tribunal gained their divinity through superhuman acts of discipline, humility, piety, and enlightenment,’ Tholer recites from memory, ‘leaving behind their earthly concerns and attaining godhood with the blessings of Azura.’

‘Guar_-shit_.’

Drath folded her arms. ‘I’m all ears for free debate, Miss Lamanu, but we cannot proceed without respect. Apologise to Miss Maesa.’

‘Fine. _Sorry_,’ she huffed.

‘Thank you. Now, your theory, if you please?’

‘Not a _theory_, Mistress Drath. My fellow ashlander ought to know _that_.’

Tholer turned on her stool. ‘I’m not an ashlander anymore.’

‘That name says otherwise, _Maesa_.’

‘_Addut-Lamanu…_’ Drath warned.

‘_Okay_. _Gods_. Before I was so rudely interrupted,’ Addut-Lamanu holds her head high. ‘The Tribunal found an artefact beneath Red Mountain, the Heart of Lorkhan, and they worked out it could make them live forever. Lord Nerevar made the Tribunal swear an oath to never use the Heart, cuz it was evil, so they stabbed him in the back to keep the power for themselves. Azura discovered their treachery, and cursed all Dunmer for the foolishness of our false gods.’ The other students groan, an audible wave of exhaustion. ‘What? I’m right.’

‘Now, _novices_,’ Drath holds her hands up for quiet, ‘all we know for certain is this all happened thousands of years before any of us were born. While not everyone is a non-conformist like Miss Lamanu, we should never be afraid of a counter-narrative offered in good faith.’

‘Maybe _I’m_ the conformist,’ Addut-Lamanu smirks, ‘and all of _you_ are the filthy deviants.’

Tholer gives her a pitying look. ‘Sure, because centuries of Temple scholarship just _happened_ to get it exactly the same kind of wrong.’

Addut-Lamanu leans in close. ‘They took our land. They took our language. Why wouldn’t they take our gods?’

‘We’re getting a _little_ off-topic now, ladies,’ Drath suggests.

Tholer clenches her jaw. ‘What _I _don’t understand,’ she sneers, ‘is why you’re even here, if you hate the faith so much!?’

‘Maesa, that’s quite beneath you-’

‘Because your precious _Temple_ is the only fucking way to put food on my family’s table, you turncoat, bootlicking, imperialist _n’wah!_’

‘Addut-_Lamanu_! There will be no more of that _language_-!’

There is a scuffle. Like all scuffles between inexperienced combatants, it is more spectacle than violence. In the weeks that follow, there are meetings. There are written reports to parents, though Tholer’s do not respond. There is advice from senior staff toward stricter adherence to the approved syllabus. One evening, months later, Tholer is called to Drath’s cottage. She finds her teacher in her herb garden, eyes closed, cross-legged.

‘Miss Maesa, come join me.’ There is a weariness in Drath’s voice that Tholer has not heard inside the classroom.

‘I prefer Tholer, Mistress Drath,’ she asserts, as she folds her legs on the soft earth. The garden is fragrant, musty even, with a sharp, bitter smell that Tholer would not recognise until her first trip to the mainland, years later.

Her teacher met her eyes. ‘A name is a powerful thing. So be it. I assume you have not heard from your mother.’

Tholer’s heart drops. She swallows, searching for the words.

‘Pain is natural, child. And there is more than one kind of family.’

There is wind among the branches of the orange tree. There is the howling of wolves in the hills. The moons are glowing, off-white and clay red, distant and placid.

‘What do you hope for from your training, Tholer?’

She does not hesitate. ‘I will be the first ashlander to lead the Tribunal Temple. I will work to bring reconciliation between the settled and nomadic peoples.’

Drath smiles at the stars. ‘I hope it will be so, young novice. It sounds lovely.’

Tholer doesn’t quite understand. It would be more than _lovely_. ‘Is that what you called me for, Mistress Drath?’

Drath lowers her gaze once more, scratches a little symbol in the earth with a finger, brushes it away again. ‘It is a pleasant evening, and I would like to visit my family’s tomb.’ She nods toward the hills. ‘It isn’t far, an hour’s walk, perhaps, but my joints aren’t what they were. Can I ask you to carry my bag? I’ll be aching for days otherwise.’

‘Mistress Drath, I would be honoured, but the guidance from the elders says I am unqualified-’

Drath waves away her concern. ‘_Elders_. I’m _elder_ than any of them, and _I_ say you can come. My things are in my chambers.’

Tholer does so. She realises she has never seen inside Drath’s home. Along one side of her cramped study is the largest collection of books she has ever seen. Books on astrology, medicine, horticulture, some more… secular discourses that turn Tholer’s cheeks red. She grabs the rucksack and walking stick and hurries back outside.

The moons are at their zenith when they reach the Drath ancestral tomb. A round, heavy wooden door into the vestibule. Drath sparks a magical light to guide them, and enters.

Tholer stands in the doorway as Drath makes her way round the chamber, igniting the torches in their sconces on each of the four walls, dismissing the magical flame as its mundane siblings begin their work. Tholer watches as she pulls kindling and fusty green herbs from her bag, drawing broad, looping symbols on the floor with her walking stick, marks she doesn’t recognise from her textbook.

Drath smiles broadly at her. ‘You’ll want to sit down for this part, dearie.’

Tholer hesitates at the doorway. The night is cool at her back, and the torchlight of the underground chamber is soft and welcoming. She steps across the threshold. The door shuts behind her with a soft thunk.

Drath is pleased. ‘Oh, I remember my first trip to see the ancestors. What a time!’ She laughs at the memory. ‘I was giddy for weeks.’ She places three small logs in a triangle around the pile of herbs, and holds a torch to them until they begin to smoulder.

Tholer coughs at the fumes and hides her nose in the sleeve of her robes.

‘You’ll get used to it, child. Sit with me.’ Tholer does so. ‘Try to keep your breath steady. The ancestors are no-one to fear.’

Tholer glances toward the door. There is nothing stopping her from picking herself up and heading for home, beside the thought of leaving an elder with a heavy bag and a three-mile walk through the dark.

She stays.

Drath begins to mutter a prayer that Tholer recognises. She places a hand on Drath’s arm, asks permission. Drath smiles and nods, not breaking her rhythm. Tholer joins in, their voices filling the small room as the smoke grows thick and the flames in the torches seem to dance of their own volition.

Tholer closes her eyes and focuses on her breathing. The smell of the smoke is rich and heady, and not entirely unpleasant after their initial assault on the senses. She feels warm, and safe, like the air itself is a blanket of thick furs.

She realises she is chanting her prayer not in the common tongue of the settled Dunmer, but the language of her mother, her grandmother, words she has neither heard nor spoken in many moons. Her hands fly to her mouth as if plugging a hole in a dam.

Drath is giggling. ‘You remember the words of your people, hearthfriend,’ she says in the ashlander language, though her accent speaks to a lifetime of travel.

‘Are you-’

‘There are many roads to Vivec, young one. And I should know, I’ve walked a few.’ There is movement in the smoke. ‘Quiet.’

Tholer obeys. She squints as the smoke starts to weave itself into regular patterns, as the air rising from the fire makes sounds like the breath of a large, sleeping animal. She feels her chest tighten and her breath start to come fast and shallow.

Drath firmly takes her hand, and Tholer returns to herself, earth beneath her feet.

The smoke is dancing, dragging the flames of the torches to and fro, moving through the room above Tholer’s head like air in a musical instrument, becoming a whisper, becoming a song. The smoke is gathering itself around the fire, becoming dense, taking shape, and - _there!_ \- a figure unfolding itself from the ashes like someone on their haunches rising to their feet. Drath is smiling and resuming her chant, though her words seem distant now, and Tholer feels uneasy, and the smoky figure is different than she remembers, and

this isn’t how it goes and the figure is

and the earth is not earth but water, water clear as air, and Tholer is standing up to her ankles in it and the figure is

My good and faithful servant, Tholer Saryoni, says the figure, though her lips do not move

this isn’t how it goes, it’s not right, this isn’t right and the figure’s dress is shining blue-green and

I am sorry, says the figure, but how can it be and the light

I am sorry, she says

for your loss

Saryoni jolts upright in her bed, knocking a clay cup to the floor, where it rolls in a wide arc under the bedside table. Several gasping breaths later, she recognises the small, windowless room in the basement of the Ald Skar Inn, where she took lodgings the previous night. Light creeps under the door, the sound of the morning’s delivery accompanies it: heavy footsteps on the stairs, low, familiar conversation.

She has no charcoal nearby, and it’s too dark to write, anyway. She rubs a hand across her forehead as the substance of the dream fades, leaving a residue of anxiety. Dread. Anticipation? She swings her feet to the floor and finds the clay cup unbroken, though the ground where the water spilled is darkened in the shape of a crescent moon.

* * *

Oxton was in a waking nightmare.

Glancing over her shoulder toward the house, she could see actors peering curiously through the door. One was remonstrating with a large stagehand, whose bemused grin suggested he’d much rather see how it all played out.

The crowd was growing restless. _The Cantatas of Vivec_ didn’t usually have a warm-up act. A man with a refined accent shouting _get on with it_ was met with a few chuckles and far more calls for hush. 

Oxton glanced at the illicit ledger in her hand, took a deep breath and centred herself. She’d done this a thousand times. Usually on a more close-quarters, one-to-one basis, admittedly. She straightened her shoulders and breathed, slowly scanning the audience from behind the huge wooden mask she’d swiped on her way out of the manor, allowing the gathered pilgrims to settle. An attentive quiet descended. She spotted a hooded Khajiit hand-sign at her: _see you at home, don’t die_, then disappear into the throng. Oxton nodded, almost imperceptibly.

_Show time_.

Oxton raised an arm above her head, then slowly lowered it to point at the crowd, pacing slowly along the front of the stage.

‘_You are all assembled_,’ she began, slightly taken aback by how the mask distorted her voice. It made her sound almost Dunmeri. She leant into it. ‘_To hear of Lord Vivec’s trials_.’ She tried to recall the handbill she’d read only minutes earlier. ‘_Of their foolishness, and their enlightenment. How through their poverty, discipline, and love for the people_’ - gods below she hoped she wasn’t going off-piste. Religious types love a humble overlord, don’t they? - ‘_Vivec became the beloved protector they are today_.’

A small cheer went up, primarily those huddled close to the stage. A few exclamations of _b’Vek!_, _bless the Three!_

Oxton raised a hand for quiet. ‘_Vivec hears your praise, good people of the Temple_.’ She could feel the crowd’s waves of energy as palpably as a breath of wind. No wonder actors loved the stage. ‘_Many of you have travelled from afar_, _with nothing but your faith_, _and the clothes on your back_. _Vivec sees you_, _and sees themself in you_.’

A larger cheer this time. Some applause. A few enthusiastic souls shouted out their origins: _Maar Gan_, _Almas Thirr_, _Narsis_. The latter drew gasps and applause: Narsis was weeks of hard roads from the holy city.

Oxton nodded her mask in approval, waited for quiet. ‘_Three blessings_, _three blessings_. _However_,’ she began ominously, tucking her hands behind her back, ‘_not everyone is so deserving of the light of Vivec_.’ A murmur rippled through the crowd. At the fringes, a pair of Ordinators leant on their spears, observing inscrutably behind golden masks of their own.

‘_Our archcanon_,’ her mind raced to remember the name, ‘_Tholer Saryoni_, _showed Vivec’s own charity and grace, donating fifty thousand drakes to rebuild the temple on the Hlaalu canton_.’ Cheers and applause. ‘_Her generosity is why we stand here today, before the manor of the project administrator_, _Hlaalu Councillor Yngling Half-Troll_.’ Polite applause.

‘_You may be wondering: why speak of public works and government officials on this blessed day?_’ Oxton strode along the front of the stage, allowing the question to simmer. ‘_Well_,’ she produced the ledger from behind her back like a magician with a dove, ‘_the answer lies in the pages this mostly _un_holy book._’

The crowd seemed uncertain. Whisperings, a few shouted questions. One Ordinator stood slightly closer to attention.

‘_This_,’ Oxton held it aloft, ‘_is the account of Councillor Half-Troll_, _and though its contents are but numbers_, _what a story it tells_.’ She could feel the curiosity growing through the crowd, the nervous energy building. Oxton was only vaguely aware of the tensions between the Houses and the Temple, but she knew how money talked. Something like static electricity touched her fingertips as she drew Saryoni’s letter from the flyleaf. She held it to an old man in the front row. ‘_Brother_, _can you identify this seal?_’

He peered closely at it. ‘That’s the seal of the High Fane,’ he called to the rest of the crowd, ‘clear as my hand in front of me.’

‘_Three blessings, brother_.’ Both Ordinators shifted their weight nervously now, as the pilgrims nearby exchanged looks of concern. Oxton raised her voice. ‘_Half-Troll has taken the Temple’s charity and feathered his own nest._’ Gasps and shouts. ‘_Renovations for a manor in the Ascadian Isles: three thousand drakes_. _Brandywine: eight hundred drakes_.’ Oxton enjoyed the boos for that one. The bottles in her bag were even more valuable than she’d thought. She turned the page and held it aloft. ‘_A banquet with the Duke of Ebonheart: two thousand drakes_. _Renovations for Yngling Manor_,_ before which we stand today: Ten. Thousand. Drakes._’

The yells from the crowd were reaching fever pitch. Oxton glanced at her hand, which had begun to feel strangely hot. The cursed ring appeared to be glowing.

When she looked back at the crowd, shouting louder than before, beginning to look to each other and form clusters of furious conversation, Oxton felt her lips moving without her volition. The voice that passed her lips was not her own, but a crisp Dunmer accent.

‘_This corruption makes a mockery of the gods._’ Through her rising panic, Oxton cast about for why the voice sounded so familiar. ‘_No longer shall my people suffer their oppressors’ open disdain_.’ She felt her feet leave the ground, and a bright glow envelop her hand. ‘_In the name of the gods both old and new_,_ stand up, and see that you are many_,’ as Oxton fought to gain control of her hand, she remembered where she’d heard the voice: in a dark cavern in the realm of dreams, in a dawnlit street in Balmora, ‘_and they are few._’

Reclaiming her fingertips was enough. In a burst of lilac Oxton blinked away from the stage, into the upper branches of the tree in the centre of the plaza. She recovered her senses just in time to see the mask clatter empty to the floor, the ledger’s pages flipping open in the breeze. A dozen pilgrims climbed on the stage, one grabbing the ledger and reading it aloud. The actors had filed out of the house and watched nervously from the fringes. The Ordinators clutched their spears tightly as a small group broke off from the crowd to confront them, before beating a hasty retreat under a hail of derision.

Oxton couldn’t hear exactly what was said next, but its effects were clear. A young woman took a clay pot from Half-Troll’s garden and cast it through a pane glass window, and that was that. Organisation was swift: food from the cellar was passed out among the elderly, the younger and bolder set up as sentries at the gate, all with the swiftness of divine inspiration. Oxton decided to make herself scarce. She glanced down at the ring, afraid of what she might see.

It sat there, quite innocently. It was a ring, just like any other. She touched it, and it did not budge.

As the actors tuned up for the hymns of Vivec’s Light, Oxton blinked outside into the twilit evening. For the rest of the Festival of St Lothis, hundreds of pilgrims would tell hundreds more of the apparition from the Old Ones, its portents of justice, equity, and better days to come. The Ordinators woukd not reclaim the plaza of St. Olms for a long time.

* * *

Ana-Amari took the longer, quieter route back to the Foreign Quarter, so whispers of the Apparition of St Olms arrived before she did. She cursed beneath her breath as she scuttled down the corridor to Jobasha’s shop. There was a note on the door.

In large, neat handwriting: ‘CLOSED FOR ST LOTHIS’ WEEKEND. BACK MORNDAS. YRS, JOBASHA (propr).’

Ana-Amari turned the page over. In the corner, in small, scribbled writing only a true friend could decipher: ‘Gone fishing with Amaya. Usual spot. Bring a rod.’

‘_GRANNY, THANK FUCK_.’

The old cat retracted her claws and hissed, her tail puffed like a feather duster. ‘_Shit-eating_,_ piss-drinking_ _devils and demons_. This one will be the _death_ of me.’

‘Good thing you’ve got nine of ‘em, eh?’ Oxton grinned. ‘What’s the note?’

Ana-Amari looked her in the eye then nodded to a distant group of people in excited discussion. ‘Ana-Amari does not know what you did, but you will tell her.’

‘Soon as _I_ figure it out! Ha ha!’ Oxton had a manic energy that stood her den-mother’s hair on end. Ana-Amari let it slide, for now.

‘Friend Jobasha has arranged a meeting-place out of the city. Ana-Amari does not know what is the matter, but it is... unlike him, for certain. You have your knife?’

‘That and some _pricey_ bottles of liquor.’

Ana-Amari glanced over her shoulder, produced a lockpick from a pocket, and clicked open the door in a single movement. ‘Ana-Amari has told Jobasha a thousand times to employ a proper locksmith. Bring your blade and necessary supplies. Leave all else.’

Oxton complied. ‘Where are we going?’

Ana-Amari jimmied the lock back into place and headed off down the hall.

‘Tell you when we get there.’

* * *

Saryoni’s second day in the Ald’ruhn temple went no slower than the first. This time, however, the archcanon found herself tuning into the rhythms of the ward: meal time, bath time, herb time, meal time; some people climb mountains to lose their sense of self when all one really needs is nine hours of work and six hours to do it in.

She learned the names of her patients. They spoke to her frankly, offering their opinions with a nonchalance she hadn’t heard in years. Hlervu, a guar farmer, cursed the imperial soldiers’ abrupt departure the way one curses bad weather. Tiras, a worker from the market, added how she expected all hell to break loose without them, but all she’d lost was the pleasure of being shaken down for protection money. Neminda, a young Redguard, the only outlander on the ward, expressed frustration at being cooped up for so long: they’d been providing bread for the school, and felt rotten leaving their spouse to handle production alone. When Saryoni praised their charity, they seemed defensive. ‘Charity’s when the lords nick ten drakes off you and expect thanks when they give one back,’ they shrugged.

Saryoni was still turning this over when evening came.

‘I ain’t got a penny for your thoughts, but there’s always tea,’ Flo placed herself carefully on the stool opposite, a mug in each hand. ‘This’uns hotter, but this’uns got more leaves.’

‘Mm,’ Saryoni considered, ‘leaves please. I’m quite warm enough.’

‘Fine choice.’ Flo sipped her tea, exhaled vocally. ‘Better’n a good hard fucking, that.’

Saryoni exploded in a tea-drenched coughing fit. After a minute of wheezing it from her lungs, she began to see the humor. Flo came round to the seat beside her friend, slapping Saryoni’s back with one hand, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes with the other.

‘Sorry, love, I’m a terrible menace. You looked like you needed a chuckle. Owt on your mind?’

‘Yes, I, uh… thank you, for that.’ Saryoni smiled. ‘Just visualising what’s ahead of me tomorrow. Back on the road to Maar Gan.’

‘Ah, the old pilgrimage site. Paying your respects?’

‘If time permits.’

‘Mm. Not gunna tell me your real name, then?’

Saryoni laughed incredulously. ‘Honestly, Flo, I wouldn’t be surprised if you knew already.’

‘_Well_, I’ve got me suspicions.’

Saryoni tilted her head. ‘Humor me.’

‘Hm. So. You remember young Balver from the Library, so reckon you weren’t lying about working in Vivec. Sticking with my gut that you’re one of the higher ups though. P’raps I ought to be watching my tone.’

‘A little late for that, Folvys.’

‘Fair cop. Travelling alone’s an odd one. Hard enough to get time off if you’re pilgriming in a group, so I can’t imagine how anyone’d get approval from the bosses to go solo. So maybe you _are_ the boss. _B’Vek_, maybe you’re the Archcanon her very own self, and here’s me with joints too banjoed for bowing and scraping.’

Saryoni sipped her tea. ‘Got me.’

Flo’s eyebrows nearly leapt off her forehead. ‘Get the fuck out.’

‘I will _not_ get the fuck out. I _will_, however, have to report you to the Ministry of Truth for re-education.’

Flo narrowed her eyes.

‘The secret police should be along presently.’ Saryoni inhaled deeply over her tea, savouring the aroma.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’

Saryoni tapped the side of her nose.

‘You nearly bloody had me there and all! Near soiled meself.’

‘Consider it payback,’ she smiled.

‘Aye, well, whatever it is you’re up to, you know there’s a roof and a hot meal here when you’re done. Maybe next time we’ll even have a bed free, when all this sickness is done with.’

Saryoni turned to her, took her hand. ‘I do wish I could be honest with you. It’s a very poor way to return your kindness. I just need you to trust me, and keep all this to yourself for a few weeks till I return to the capital. I’ve seen too much here not to do something about it.’

Flo nodded thoughtfully. ‘Aye, we’d all appreciate the charity. And of course, there’s no question your story’s safe with me.’

‘Thank you, Folvys. It’s a blessing to know this temple is in such good hands.’

Flo hummed, puckered her lips in thought, dusted something off her leg. ‘I’ve a few more rounds to do, petal. You’re a good soul, I reckon, but there’s one thing I’d like you to ask yourself when you get back to them nice thick walls and nice warm beds - and I ask this with love, mind you.’ She raised herself upright. ‘Why’s it taken you to see us struggling with your own two eyes to do summat to help.’

Saryoni opened her mouth to speak as Flo headed to the wards, then stopped herself. ‘I understand.’

Flo stopped at the doorway. ‘No you don’t, love, not yet. But you’re a good soul, like I say.’ She pointed. ‘There’s bread in the cupboard, better than the crusty stuff they sell at the Ald Skar. You’ll need it for tomorrow.’

‘Thank you, Folvys. I won’t forget this.’

‘Good. Thank you for your service, Llevana Maesa. Almsivi guide your steps.’

‘Almsivi guide you too, Folvys.’

Flo rapped the doorframe with her knuckles, and left.

The sound of voices from the wards, a patient calling out for aid. Tholer Saryoni ran a finger round the lip of her cup, absently picking up the leaves. 

Hours later, under the twin moons, a figure in a traveller’s cloak laid out her bedroll, her small fire the only light for miles around.

* * *

‘This one is trying to tell me she never had a lock-picking teacher?’

Oxton shrugged. ‘Well, not much point when you can just, y’know,’ in a puff of lilac, she blinked to a low branch in a nearby tree, ‘_ta-da_.’ She dismounted acrobatically.

Far behind them, the sun rose over Vivec, turning the vast stone cantons to gold. Oxton and her den-mother had taken a gondola to the mainland, keeping their heads down as squads of Ordinators, some still hastily adjusting their armor, double-timed their way toward St Olms. The word ‘riot’ was in the air, and the gondolier swore to the ancestors she’d seen Yngling Half-Troll and his entourage fleeing the city, south across the Inner Sea, clean out of Vvardenfell.

Back on dry land, Oxton explained what she could. Ana-Amari decided, quite early on, that her protégé was either fabricating, concussed, or both, and at any rate she was safer not knowing. They crossed the series of low wooden bridges connecting western Vivec to the Bitter Coast, the only sounds the ambient buzz of marshland and their feet on the ancient planks, swollen and groaning in the dank autumn air. Oxton had peered for a long time into the pondlife below the reeds, the teeming, fungal shapes flitting around below the surface, til her name was called from a distance.

Hours later, and with the city far in the distance, she stopped to cast an eye out across the coast.

‘This all feels a bit familiar, gran.’

Ana-Amari was some distance ahead, and called back over her shoulder. ‘It should, the imps bring all their prisoners through here.’

A puff of lilac at her shoulder. ‘You what.’

‘Gods below. Does personal space mean nothing to this one.’

‘Fine. But consider how _this one_’d rather be headed _away_ from fudding prison ships.’

Ana-Amari stopped and turned to face her. ‘Which is why Ana-Amari does not tell this one where we are headed. Ana-Amari is clever like this.’

‘Oh, very good.’ She turned her nose up. ‘But how shall we truly _embody_ our pedagogical praxis without radical transparency.’

‘This one found a stash of Jobasha’s pamphlets, marvellous.’ Ana-Amari kept walking, her pads leaving indentations in the soft earth. ‘Last time Ana-Amari checked, this one is an imperial spy. Perhaps the imps fill your boots with gold if you are _radically transparent_ with them.’

‘Sure, if _someone_ hadn’t burned the ruddy letter from the frigging emperor. Coulda bought a flat with the wax alone.’

‘This one thinks she can fence secret missives from the colonizers,’ she chuckled. ‘This one doesn’t need a lockpick tutor, she needs a common-sense tutor.’

‘Too bad there ain’t none in the vicinity.’

‘This one must carry her own burden, then. Lockpicking, however, Ana-Amari can teach. Theory is simple: see the lock in your mind; feel with your fingers what your eye cannot see.’

‘I’ve got transferrable skills, nice.’

‘Does the vulgar kitten want a lesson or not.’

‘Fine.’

‘So. Your picks must perform the work of any and every key. This means carrying at least as many tools as a lock has tumblers. Ana-Amari does not keep a dozen picks for show.’

‘Uh huh.’

‘In many regards, the first tumbler is most onerous: this pick must be strong enough to hold every driver pin at once, but fine enough not to block entry for the rest. This takes a steady hand, and unbroken attention.’

‘Mm.’

Ana-Amari glanced at her student. ‘Rat meat is chewy and flavorless, but palatable with the right spices and a few hours’ slow cooking.’

‘Got it.’

Ana-Amari flicked her companion’s ear with a claw.

‘_FACKIN ‘ELL_, what’s the big idea?!’

‘First lesson of lockpicking: _focus_.’ She glanced up at the road ahead. ‘Arrille’s Tradehouse is just around the corner. Come.’

Oxton popped her hood over her ears as they entered Seyda Neen: once a sleepy fishing village, now imperial passport control for the whole island. It had been barely more than a week since her last visit, but Oxton felt years older. The ship had docked that night in torrential rain, and she’d had to pull her feet up on her cell’s narrow bench to stay dry. Passing the village’s squat stone cottages and ramshackle fishing huts, its mushroom-coated trees and shallow brook meandering toward the estuary, she could hardly recognise the place that had seemed so forboding, so alien, mere days before.

She didn’t feel so brave as to catch the eye of the imperial guards, though. Oxton could clock the proper bastards from fifty paces, and you don’t get a gig processing prisoner-spies by being a pillar of the community.

Ana-Amari nodded her towards a thatched house: the largest building in town not run by the imps. A wooden sign at the door showed a painted white deer and the word ‘Tradehouse’. The old Khajiit pounded the locked door with the side of her fist.

Footsteps inside. A gruff voice. ‘Closed for the festival. Come back Morndas.’

Ana-Amari glanced over her shoulder and leaned in close. ‘Amaya sent us. Here to fish.’

The door opened a crack. A high elf peered down his nose at them, then unhooked the chain and ushered them inside. ‘Upstairs. Suppose you’ll want tea too. Hope you like redbush, s’all I can get from the mainland.’

‘Nothing for Ana-Amari, thank you. Your hospitality is kindness enough.’

Oxton felt her shoulders melt as the front door shut, taking the biting draught with it. Jobasha met them at the top of the stairs, his waistcoat uncustomarily weather-beaten. He flashed his teeth at them both. Oxton noticed his ears were a little flatter than usual.

‘Friends. Welcome. Jobasha hopes you had a safe trip from the capital. He trusts you had fine evening amongst the temple faithful?’

The second storey looked like a taproom: a small barrel rested on a rack behind the bar, a few benches and tables made of the same dark wood as the trees outside, a window opening out onto the coastline, the sunrise passing through glass so thick the light turned almost blue.

Ana-Amari placed her gear behind the counter. ‘Got what we were after,’ she shrugged.

Jobasha raised his bushy eyebrows. ‘Did you? Splendid. What a time you must have had.’

Oxton spotted LaCroix in a corner, reclining against the far wall, legs stretched out along a bench, reading a loose bundle of papers. Even at rest, the assassin’s body seemed poised, like a sculptor’s model, like you could stack books on her head without breaking her concentration.

Ana-Amari grunted her assent. ‘The kitten has work to do on her skills, but we are in one piece, as friend Jobasha sees.’

Sitting beside LaCroix was the most beautiful person Oxton had ever seen.

Jobasha gave the old thief a wide smile. ‘So, friend Ana-Amari didn’t happen bump into a gathering of irate pilgrims, for example, a gathering who just happened to loot and occupy the very manor which friend Ana-Amari just _happened_ to burglarise?’

‘How-?’ Ana-Amari was unable to stop herself. The overnight hike had dulled her senses.

‘Hm.’ He shrugged merrily. ‘Jobasha takes that as a yes. Gondolier arrived with the mail from Vivec just before Jobasha’s friends did. Such tales she told! Miraculous happenings, by all accounts.’

Ana-Amari rubbed her eyes with a paw. She felt suddenly desperate for that hot tea and a warm bedroll. ‘And when friend Jobasha returns to his store, he finds himself richer than when he left. Kitten will tell you what she swiped.’

‘Marvellous. Jobasha definitely recalls locking his shop upon departure, so it fills his heart with joy that his friends broke in and filled it with purloined goods. Anti-robbery, a whole exciting new genre of crime. So,’ he turned to Oxton, ‘what treasures await Jobasha?’

Sitting beside LaCroix was a Dunmer with copper hair and a deep blue robe, writing something in a pocketbook. Their brow was furrowed, ever so slightly.

‘_Kitten_.’

‘Huh? Oh, hiya. Thanks for having us, chief.’

Jobasha stared at her in concern. ‘Friend Oxton is concussed, perhaps.’

‘Ana-Amari told you, kitten. You should find a healer.’

Oxton blinked, frowned at her interrogators. ‘Fine! I’m fine. Just need some rest, innit. Who’s, uh, who’s your friend?’

‘Ah, yes, where are Jobasha’s manners.’ He gave Ana-Amari a meaningful glance. ‘Friends Ana-Amari and Lena Oxton, meet friend Mehra Milo. They are a Dissident Priest, destroyer of foul artefacts, holder of dreadful taste in fiction, etcetera.’

‘Yeah, and who profits off my need for dreadful fiction?’ The priest stood and extended a hand. ‘Vvardenfell’s most wanted, at your service. Friends call me Milo.’ Their smile was infectious.

Oxton shook her hand. ‘Ha! Funny.’

‘Thanks! You’re a chipper one. I like that.’

Oxton felt her ears turn crimson, thanking Mara she’d left her hood up.

Ana-Amari piped up. ‘Charmed, certainly, but if Ana-Amari isn’t unconscious soon, she becomes terribly crotchety. She will make your acquaintance presently.’

‘Arrille will assist you,’ Jobasha nodded toward the stairs as he took a seat, ‘sweet dreams, my friend.’ Ana-Amari saluted as she took her leave. ‘Now,’ Jobasha continued, ‘we have much to discuss and little time, so I suggest we dispense with pleasantries. Friend Milo, we have reason to believe friend Oxton might,’ he exhaled, a moment of clarity passing through him like a sudden bout of heartburn, ‘might be the reincarnation of an ancient Dunmer war hero. We hoped you might advise.’

Oxton smiled apologetically. She glanced over at LaCroix, who barely seemed to have registered their entire exchange. Must be a fascinating read.

Milo nodded solemnly. ‘The Nerevarine, right. Well,’ they ran a hand through their messy hair, ‘it’s rare, but not unheard of. Last one was Peakstar, ashlander mage, maybe thirty years ago. Big news among the tribes, but the settled folk didn’t like her talk of land rights, or abolition of the Ordinators, and that’s before the whole questioning-the-Tribunal’s-divinity thing. Some folk reckon the Temple hunted her down on the sly, others say she died fighting a vampire.’ They shrugged. Raised their teacup to the ceiling. ‘Here’s to her, either way.’

‘Just a tick,’ Oxton leaned in, blinking in confusion. ‘You’re saying there’s been _another_ Nerevarine?’

Milo frowned at Jobasha in mock disappointment. He folded his arms. ‘We were too busy for seminars, friend Milo, and, until this morning, Jobasha was rather unwilling to see this as more than Imperial chicanery.’

‘Sure.’ Milo turned back to Oxton. ‘So, first off, yeah, there’s been dozens of Nerevarines. Rare to have more than one in a lifetime, though, so…’ they kissed their teeth as they ruminated, ‘maybe it _is_ just the imps giving us the runaround. Maybe you’re bait and they’ve been watching you the whole time, see what little fishies you catch.’ Their smile was toothy. They clearly didn’t find the idea unnerving in the slightest.

‘If so, friend Milo, it suggests a desperation that our Imperial friends have not yet shown. A Nerevarine at such a time could be greatly destabilising.’

‘Y’know lads, I’m just about done with being chatted about like a two-dicked badger with a political agenda.’

Milo gave a deep laugh. ‘Yeah, you’re right, sorry. It’s just a lot to wrap your head around.’

‘Also,’ Oxton rubbed her eyes, ‘not to be a smart-arse or anything, but like, how can they _all_ be Nerevarines? Isn’t the point of _prophesied rebirths_,’ she waved a hand vaguely, ‘that you just get the one?’

‘The ashlanders embrace these apparent contradictions of their beliefs,’ LaCroix explained, not looking up from her book, ‘They see each rebirth as proof that their old god, Azura, has not abandoned them. Every failure brings them closer to their freedom from tyranny, both from the Empire and the legal strictures of the settled Dunmer.’

‘Oh, hello, love. How’d you know all that?’

LaCroix arched an eyebrow. She spoke as if to a particularly slow puppy. ‘By reading these papers Milo gave me about the Nerevarine.’

Oxton’s stomach dropped. The surreality of the past few days had been one thing, but hearing it from LaCroix, who she’d figured for little more than a firmly secular mercenary, gave matters a deeply unwelcome gravity.

She turned back to Milo. ‘S’pose you’d like to see the ring?’

Milo nodded. Oxton extended her hand, which Milo took. Their palm was soft, with small calluses around the base of their fingers. Milo took a deep breath, puffing out their cheeks.

‘Well, if it ain’t the real deal, it’s a damn fine fake.’

‘Didn’t seem much like the one in Jobasha’s book,’ Oxton suggested, hopefully.

‘Thing you gotta get used to with Nerevarine stuff,’ Milo sighed, ‘it doesn’t pay much attention to books. We might all go to the ancestors without really _knowing_ whether this thing is real or not. Just depends what you do with it.’ They fixed Oxton with their gaze. ‘But what really worries me? Real or not? What happens when word gets out. Far as I know, and I know pretty far, there’s never been an outlander Nerevarine. Friend of a friend mentioned something about it in the lost prophecies. Never paid it much mind before today, though.’

LaCroix sighed and dropped her papers on the table. ‘We are jumping to conclusions. Mehrunes’ razor: the simplest explanation is usually correct. We _know_ the Emperor orchestrated Oxton’s arrival on the island. We _know_ the Empire benefits from Vvardenfell in disarray. Why shouldn’t we simply… mind our business?’ She looked imploringly at Jobasha. ‘Gods know how many more of those cultists there are. This could all be a diversion from our plans.’

Jobasha rapped a furry knuckle on the wood. ‘If pilgrims start talking about divine apparitions at the height of a festival, the Temple will be compelled to respond. Diversion or not, it will be unsafe for Oxton to stay here, and unethical for us to abandon her.’

Oxton didn’t need convincing. ‘I’m all up for keeping my arse moving, lads, and who knows? Maybe it _is_ all connected. Maybe you’ll get to chib up some more cultists along the way!’

LaCroix’s gaze was withering. ‘Comment pouvez-vous être si mignon et si bête.’

‘Y’know, I mighta lost my accent but I still understand Breton,’ Oxton grinned.

LaCroix didn’t respond. Maybe Oxton only imagined a little colour rising in her cheeks.

‘So, yeah,’ Milo began, studiously ignoring whatever _that_ was, ‘them’s the basics. You’ve got the ashlanders wanting a revival of ancestor-worship and self-rule under the auspices of old god Azura, you’ve got the Temple wanting to maintain control over orthodox faith in the Tribunal, you’ve got an underground cult operating under the growing power of Dagoth Ur under Red Mountain, you’ve got the literal fucking Empire wanting to expand its influence over trade and land, and you’ve got us.’

There was a long silence. Jobasha broke it with a chuckle. ‘Jobasha is going to see what’s inside that barrel, and then Jobasha is going to drink it.’

‘It is barely dawn,’ LaCroix called after him. She considered for a moment. ‘If it is a good vintage, pour me a glass.’

‘I thought we were, y’know, hitting the road? Getting outta dodge? Ring any bells?’

Milo was getting up from the table. ‘I’ll need to process some papers with the boys in the customs office, get clearance to sail. Take a couple hours, I reckon.’

‘We’re going by boat?’

‘Didn’t Jobasha tell you? Tch, that boy. Yeah, you got any experience on the sea?’

Oxton considered this. ‘Shagged a pirate once.’

‘You’re very open. That’s cool. If anyone asks, you’re a passenger, headed to Gnaar Mok. Meantime, get some rest. Think your Khajiit auntie found a spot downstairs.’ From across the room, the sound of a barrel being tapped, to muted celebration. ‘Unless you fancy babysitting these two. Gunna regret _that_ on the open water.’

‘Nah, I’ll check on granny. Could do with a catnap myself.’

Milo turned as they reached the stairs. ‘Sounds like you’ve earned it, mate.’ They winked, and were gone.

When Oxton turned to the bar, Jobasha had set up three rather generous measures of something rich and dark.

‘What’s that, then.’

‘Jobasha has no idea.’ He inhaled deeply. ‘Smells expensive though. To your voyage!’

‘Salut,’ chorused LaCroix, who slammed the glassful in one swift motion.

‘Hold up. _Our _voyage. You ain’t coming with?’

Jobasha chuckled. ‘Friend Oxton, Jobasha is a scholar, he cannot go charging around Vvardenfell like a knight-errant. He also cannot just leave his business untended for weeks at a time.’

LaCroix had already refreshed her glass. ‘Salut,’ she said grimly, mostly to herself.

‘Oh. Well.’ Oxton felt deflated. ‘It was a pleasure meeting you, Jobasha.’

Jobasha waved a finger. ‘Not _was_. If Jobasha knows friend Ana-Amari, this one is in safe hands. Jobasha is not religious, but he believes in her, and that we shall meet again. We _shall_ meet again, comrade.’

Oxton lifted a glass. ‘To you, mate.’

‘To us.’

‘_Sa-fucking-lut_.’

‘What’s with you?’

LaCroix seemed to have quite a buzz on already. ‘I shall tell you a secret.’ She leaned in with a sneer. ‘I fucking _hate_ sailing.’

Jobasha grinned. ‘Two thieves, a priest, and an assassin in a boat. Jobasha knows a joke that starts like this.’

When Milo returned an hour later, Oxton was asleep, and LaCroix was singing.

* * *

Oxton woke in a panic from dreams of water, a prison ship, a light in the darkness.

‘Alright mate? Good snooze?’ Milo yelled over the sound of waves and wind.

Oxton squeezed her eyes shut. ‘We’re on a boat. Okay.’ She stood. The boat was more than roomy enough for its four sailors. A mainsail, a jib, some ragged rigging, a few nooks for cargo.

She fell down again. She heard hearty laughter from the tiller.

‘You’ll get used to it!’

She looked gingerly toward the prow. Ana-Amari sat on the foremost edge, the wind whipping through her fur. Her back was straight, braced against the cold air and spray.

Clinging to the mast, face pale as death, was LaCroix. She swigged something from a small vial. Judging by her expression, it tasted vile.

Oxton turned back to Milo. ‘How far to Gnaar Mok?’

Milo looked at the sky, then at the coastline to their right. ‘Not long, I reckon. Another four hours or so, if the wind stays true?’

‘Ah. T’riffic.’

Oxton found the dry patch she’d been sleeping in, and closed her eyes.

It had been weeks since she’d stayed in one place for more than a few days, and she had the feeling it could be weeks more. She gave the ring on her finger an experimental tug. Nothing. Hope springs eternal. She listened to the water crashing against the hull, the sail snapping fitfully in the breeze.

Many leagues along the Bitter Coast, a small, but surprisingly lively, fishing village went about its business, quite unaware what the waves of history was about to fetch up on its shores.

Many miles inland, in the ash wastes in the shadow of Red Mountain, an old woman placed one foot in front of the other, ever farther from home, ever closer to home.

In a palace carved from living rock in the holy city, a living god meditated, though what passed through their mind, they alone could say.

And in a fishing boat, its sail a thick mess of stitches, weaving through the mess of small islands that make up Vvardenfell’s coastline, a young woman slept, and dreamed.


	8. Calm

The wind was howling.

The sun had dipped below the horizon by the time the village of Gnaar Mok materialised through the fog, its few dozen buildings all huddled together for warmth. Milo was hoarse from yelling over the near-horizontal rain that greeted them at the rickety wooden jetty, guiding three inexperienced deckhands who didn’t know a rudder from a boom. LaCroix had been particularly useless, her face like thunder and turning a worrying shade of grey. Once on terra firma, she grabbed her pack and made a beeline for the only manor in town. Ana-Amari called after her, her black hood sodden against her scalp.

LaCroix turned sharply. She looked close to stamping her foot in rage. ‘Si vous pensez que je vais passer encore une minute sur cette... _merdasse_...!’ Her voice cracked in frustration, and for a moment, her entire body expressed the purest misery. Ana-Amari turned to Oxton for translation.

‘She’s not getting back in the boat, mate.’ Oxton dropped a couple of crates onto the dock. She hoped they were watertight. ‘Où… - ah shit, how’s it go - uh, où allez-vous?’

LaCroix rolled her eyes. She almost seemed relieved for the excuse to do so. ‘Please do not mangle my language further.’ She stomped back to the dock, pointed toward a stone house. In Balmora, it might have been cosy, a promising fixer-upper, but in the rainswept hamlet of Gnaar Mok it was positively regal. ‘Almse Arenim is little more than a village oathman, but I should rather take my chances as her uninvited guest than with whatever dingy hovel you have stashed away.’

Ana-Amari glanced over at a single-roomed hut near the shore, its wooden slats a deep, damp brown, its thatching in dire need of refixing. She hummed under her breath. ‘What are the chances, friend LaCroix, that a Balmoran alchemist travels with a wise, handsome Khajiit retainer, who carries bags and stays quiet in exchange for a dry bed.’

LaCroix shrugged. ‘Depends how quiet.’

Ana-Amari’s whiskers dripped steadily. ‘Fine. Lead on, _my lady_.’ LaCroix dropped her bag wetly at her feet and strode off toward Arenim Manor. The den-mother turned to Milo and Oxton. ‘The shack is locked, but this should not pose a problem to a burglar of such ability, yes?’

Milo looked between the two thieves. The rain didn’t seem to faze them as they unloaded the last of the cargo.

Oxton was too tired to argue. ‘Sure. Can’t say you ain’t earned a decent night’s kip. See you for breakfast?’

Ana-Amari nodded, satisfied. ‘_Late_ breakfast. We may be stranded for a day or two, until the weather turns once more in our favour. These two should make themselves comfortable.’ She departed with a swift nod.

Oxton smiled damply at Milo. ‘Well! Just the two of us, then. Ha ha.’

They grinned. ‘Sounds like a party. Let’s get this stuff indoors, yeah?’

A frantic few minutes later, after a frustrated attempt at forcing the lock, the tools repeatedly slipping from Oxton’s hand, she gave up and blinked inside, draining her, once again, of the last of her magicka. The gale dropped to a low, distant grumble as they shut the damp-swollen door behind them, and Oxton flopped heavily onto her back. She surveyed their lodgings. A small fire pit in the centre of the shack, for which - Zenithar’s graces - the last occupants had left wood and kindling, and which Milo had already begun to shape into a blaze. A table with a low bench, two serviceable hammocks with blankets that made her itch just to look at, and, hanging from the rafters, some fishing lines, a wicker basket, a small cauldron and a worn iron skillet. As the fire snapped and roared into life, it could almost have been cosy.

Sitting back on their haunches, Milo closed their eyes, and just breathed.

Oxton hung her sodden jacket over a chair by the fire, and watched them for a long second. From the few Dunmer she’d known in the High Rock underworld, Milo was young by elf standards. But something in the furrows of their brow, the cracked skin around their knuckles, spoke of long years on the road, of taking rest wherever rest could be found. They blinked their eyes open and smiled, a little bashful to be watched.

‘Sorry,’ they chuckled, hugging their knees. ‘Good fire’s hard to beat.’

Oxton shrugged, made herself comfortable on the earthen floor. ‘No arguments here.’

The door rattled on its hinges as another wave of sea-mist rolled over the village.

‘This a regular hideout of yours?’ Oxton asked the ceiling.

‘Yeah,’ Milo said to the fire, ‘not many villages this side of the island that don’t have a temple. Should be safe for a few days, at least. S’pose we should get to know each other? Gunna be travelling together for a bit.’ Milo pulled their robe over their head and hung it beside Oxton’s jacket, found their balance on the larger of the two hammocks. Oxton kept her eyes fixed on the thatched roof.

‘Sure, sure. Where you from, what’s your star sign, what’s it like being possessed by the spirit of a thousand-year-old war hero…’

‘Four thousand, probably.’

‘‘Probably’?’

‘Well yeah,’ Milo adjusted their cloth bindings, tucked their hands behind their head, ‘First Era history ain’t an exact science. Barely an exact mythology.’

‘Huh.’ The rain drummed on the thatch, a low, fuzzy noise that filled the small room. ‘So, how do you know Amélie and Jobasha?’

‘Hmmm.’ They exhaled. ‘Knew Jobasha first, through the trade union. The Priests do most of our travelling by sea, so making friends with the dockworkers just sort of happened, and he’s got intel on everyone south of Sheogorath. But LaCroix? B’Vek, you probably know her better than I do. Turned up a couple of years ago, said she was a fighter, even though… well, she don’t exactly _look_ like a merc. But, first gig she did was top notch, and now, any time we need dirty work? Like, _real_ dirty? She turns up, does the job, back to Balmora. One time she forgot to take her pay.’

Oxton laughed sharply. ‘Sounds about right. I stole a duke’s ransom off her by accident. Fuck. Just realised if I’d been a more careful thief none of us’d be here.’

‘The Three move in mysterious ways, for real.’

Oxton hummed, fiddling with her ring. Tried not to think of it like a very small shackle.

‘So what’s the deal with you two?’ Milo asked casually, almost to the world at large.

‘The deal?’

‘Yeah, you know.’ They raised their eyebrows. ‘With you two.’

Oxton made a sound of purest agony. ‘_Ugh_, mate, don’t even. You ever found yourself terminally indebted to a serial killer who you kind of secretly want to step on you but who might literally end your life if they found out?’

Milo blinked. ‘Not recently.’

‘You’re missing out.’ Oxton rolled on her side to face them, enjoying the heat from the growing flames. She studied the ring in the dim firelight. ‘So whaddya reckon?’ she started.

‘Bout what?’

‘Who’s gunna be the next High King of Skyrim. Bout the ring! Is it real, am I...’ Oxton chuckled through her nerves, ‘y’know…’

Milo blew air through their lips. They met Oxton’s eyes for a second. Oxton held her breath. ‘C’mere,’ they said.

‘Eh?’

‘C’mere! Lemme take a look at you. What’d you say your birthsign was?’

Oxton hauled herself to her feet. ‘Shadow sun, tower moon, warrior rising,’ she shuffled over to Milo’s hammock, dropping to her knees.

Milo nodded sagely. ‘Uh huh, makes sense. Let me see your eyes.’

Oxton frowned, but obediently tilted her head toward the firelight. Milo put a hand under her chin, made contemplative noises.

‘Interesting, interesting.’ Milo scrunched their chin in thought. ‘Open wide.’

‘You what.’

‘Show me your teeth.’

‘You’re fucking with me.’

‘Can’t be the Nerevarine without healthy gums.’

‘Oh for fuck’s sake.’ Oxton slapped their hand away, huffed back into the other hammock. Milo laughed deeply to themselves, making the hammock bounce. Oxton crossed her arms. ‘This is serious!’ she huffed.

‘Better get my chuckles in now, then.’

Oxton stared daggers.

‘Yeah, alright, being a dick. Sorry.’ They scrutinised her across the fire. ‘Okay. You want a straight answer about the ring, the apparitions, the dreams, all that stuff you talked about on the boat? Like I said, don’t work like that, sorry. Here’s a question for you, though. Do you _want _to be the Nerevarine?’

Oxton barked a laugh. ‘What’d I say about fucking with me?’

‘Not this time, swear to the Three. How d’you feel when you think, _I’m the Nerevarine_.’

Oxton gazed at the thatch roof. Small rivulets slipped down the inside through a crack, meeting at a discoloured patch on the wall. ‘Don’t think I have done, honestly. It’s all been, y’know, what’s next, where’s next.’

‘Try it.’

Oxton closed her eyes and thought some fateful words. _I’m the Nerevarine_.

The fire spit and crackled merrily. The wind seemed to blow a little easier beyond the door.

‘So?’ Milo’s voice was gentle.

Oxton puffed out her cheeks. ‘Fuck, I dunno. Scary? Guess you’re asking if, deep down,’ Oxton made her voice tremble for dramatic effect, ‘_I always suspected I was_ _the chosen one_ or some shite. Like growing up piss-poor was just to make my _true destiny_ more narratively compelling. Like... I never even heard of the fucker till a few days ago. Shouldn’t it be, I dunno, _you_? Or an ashlander, like Peakstar?’

Milo jutted their chin. ‘I hear you, but the gods’ wills are not ours to know. Maybe your journey’s only just started. Never said it’d be easy.’

Oxton looked at them. ‘But what if it _is_ just the imps? Just… politics.’

‘Wouldn’t explain the dreams, or whatever it was happened in Vivec.’

She dropped her head in her hands, exasperated. ‘Fuck. _Fuck!_’

‘I feel for you, mate. It’s a real bum deal. Matters more what you do with it.’

‘Right, ‘cept when folk say that they usually mean, like, getting screwed over by the landlord, or running out of cheese.’

‘Hm. Same thing, I guess, just… scaled up.’

‘Running out of cheese, but, like, cosmically.’

Milo laughed. ‘Yeah, now you’re getting it.’

‘Flaming Mara, how the fuck are you a priest?’ Oxton smiled, despite herself.

‘Story for another time, I’d say.’

‘Fine, be cool and mysterious. Anyway, I’ve bared my soul enough for one night. What’s your spin on it? What’s the Nerevarine to you?’

Milo clasped their hands over their chest, took a long, deep breath. ‘Imagination,’ they said, finally.

Oxton smirked at this, intrigued. ‘Eh? You think it’s all make-believe?’

‘Nah, nah.’ Milo frowned, grappling with a slippery thought. ‘Or… yeah, actually, kind of.’

‘Well, glad we cleared that up.’

‘Tsss, give me a second, we’re talking real shit, right?’ They feigned indignation. ‘It’s, like, even _if_ the Nerevarine, or the Moon-and-Star, whatever, is _really_ an agent of Azura… that doesn’t make the world change overnight? Like, all those failed incarnates show what happens when you put the cart before the horse. You need…’ They trailed off, gazing into the little fire, clearly struggling in the shack’s close, damp air.

‘A symbol?’ Oxton suggested, a stab in the dark.

‘Yeah… but no? Like you need to have a picture in your mind, sure, but that picture’s gotta include… _everything_. Who’s gunna be the hero? Okay, that’s a good way of putting a lot of ideas in one basket, but... who’s gunna bake the bread, who’s gunna catch the fish, who’s gunna heal the sick? How are we gunna look out for each other? And that world… don’t exist yet. But you gotta believe _so hard_ that it will, that it _does_, _already_, _somewhere_, that all it’s gunna take is enough people imagining and working on the same stuff to just… make it real. That’s the Nerevarine, to me. Something like that.’

They were a little breathless, then. They exhaled deeply. Oxton hadn’t realised her heart was racing. Milo ran a hand down their face, gave an apologetic smile.

‘Sorry, big answer to a little question, huh.’

Oxton shrugged. ‘Serves me right for asking it,’ she grinned.

The room was still, but for the smoke escaping through the thatch. A bird cawed harshly in a tree outside.

‘Well,’ they pulled themselves slowly upright, ‘more to the point, I’m starving, and sounds like the rain’s off for a bit. I know a place nearby we can gather mushrooms for supper. Wanna come with?’

‘Ooh,’ Oxton hopped to her feet, put on a posh falsetto, ‘a midnight _rendez_-vous? What _shall_ the neighbours think?’

‘We’re going to a swamp, mate.’

‘Could be an illicit swamp. Can’t tell me it ain’t.’

Milo smirked, shrugging back into a much drier robe. ‘Get your hood on, you perv. Storm could be back any minute.’ They held open the door, and Oxton passed through it with a little curtsey. Rainwater dripped heavily off the trees, running down toward the shore, where sunlight fought to break through the clouds. The wind blew in round the shack, snuffing out the fire in an instant.

* * *

The ash storm was howling.

Tholer Saryoni adjusted her scarf around her nose and mouth, pulled her hood tighter down her forehead. She cursed her absentmindedness for not buying proper gear back in the city. How long had it been since her last time in the ashlands? Had the storms gotten worse? The hikes of her memory were in glorious sunlight, cliff racers weaving their intricate dances through a vivid blue sky. The skin round her eyes stung horribly, her cheeks ached from the grimace she’d held for miles.

Nestled in the foothills of the Red Mountain range, Maar Gan split its time as a mining village, a little backwater Ald’ruhn, and as a stopping-place for pilgrims. In perhaps the least teachable moment in their whole oeuvre, Vivec had, according to the annals, saved the whole village from destruction by taunting a demon into attacking them instead; the villagers built a shrine where the boulder it threw had landed, where it remains to this day. She’d never quite teased out its didactic value. Although, like much of the living god’s career, this account had long since passed into folklore, Saryoni quietly suspected its origins to be rather more mundane. A village needs trade, travellers, and visitors, and a holy curiosity as unmissable as The Very Large Possibly Holy Rock offered a lucrative diversion from the guar trails.

She spotted the village watchtowers just after nightfall, their weak fires flickering in the wind, inland lighthouses among the dunes. The nightwatchman, a young Dunmer in ill-fitting bonemold armor, called out to her as she drew near, opening a low door and shepherding her inside. His expression sat somewhere between concern and surprise.

‘Y’alright, miss? Shoddy night to be out on your lonesome.’

The door opened to a closet-sized mud room. Judging by the ash stains on every surface, its occupants had given up on whitewashing the place some time ago. Having brushed herself down as best she could, the guard opened the inner door. Behind it was a tiny office: a desk covered in various parchments, another with mugs and a teapot, a small hearth and a rickety ladder up to a hatch in the ceiling, all pushed together into a space barely larger than the High Fane’s lavatories.

Saryoni unravelled her scarf and took her first breath of fresh air in hours. The lingering scent of the tea leaves filled her lungs, earthy and warm. The guard shuffled through the small gap between the wall and his desk, produced a nub of charcoal. ‘So!’ he began, with the air of someone who’d anticipated rather a quieter shift, ‘what brings you to our wee burgh?’

She tried smoothing out her hair, though she could feel the ash holding it in a stiff thatch. She was sure she looked like a witch of the wilds. ‘I’m visiting a friend, on my way up north on pilgrimage.’ No more than a week on the road, and blending truth, half-truth and outright lies had become second nature, almost a reflex.

The guard jotted this down. ‘Grand, grand. Off to the northern isles, is it? My gran did the Sanctus Shrine last spring, saw the very cabin Saryoni wrote her _Sermons_. Hope to see it myself some day.’

She suppressed a smile. ‘If I can find a willing boatman, perhaps.’

‘Aye, not the easiest these days,’ the guard sighed. ‘Maybe try the fishers up at Khuul? We’ve a nice bound copy in the temple if you don’t make it that far.’

‘I’m... familiar with it, thank you.’

He nodded. ‘So, who’s the friend you’re visiting?’

She told him.

‘And who’s calling?’

‘Llevana Maesa.’

‘Maesa,’ he echoed, flatly, though he gave her a quick, unreadable glance before making a note in his ledger. ‘Grand. She’s moved house lately, a wee cottage closer to the temple. I can take you there now, if you like.’

‘That would be very kind. Won’t you be missed in the tower?’

He smiled at her like she’d asked what way was up. ‘You’re our first visitor in a fortnight, miss. Since the ash storms got, well, _like that_,’ he gestured out the door, ‘we get one supply caravan a month from the city, once the summer’s done. May as well be on the moon between times.’ 

He shut the ledger and pulled a facemask from a drawer in his desk, wiped it down with his hand. ‘Here,’ he held it out to her, ‘may as well take this, better than it sitting around gathering dust.’

Inside the old walls, Maar Gan had not fared well since Saryoni’s last visit. Ash piled up on the windward side of every building, and only the hardiest plantlife - thick, grey trama roots and indefatigable fire ferns - budded through the cracks in the pavement. The temple compound was a little more protected from the elements, set back from the village proper behind a head-high wall. They arrived at a low stone building, barely larger than a shepherd’s hut.

The guard tapped his forehead in a rudimentary salute. ‘I’ll leave you here miss, hope you enjoy your stay.’ He turned to leave, then seemed to remember something. ‘And I’m, uh, I’m sorry for your troubles.’

Saryoni thanked him, a little puzzled. She waited until he’d turned the corner, back toward the watchtower. The compound was silent, but for the whistling wind that had almost carried the guard’s voice away, even standing right next to her.

In the attic room of the cottage, she could see dim lamplight cracking through the shutters. It had been so long. She braced herself for the possibility of being turned away. Perhaps with so little traffic she could find a bed at the trading post. She took a deep breath, removed her mask and gave a firm knock on the front door.

The light snuffed out, and she could just about hear creaking floorboards on the stairs.

She could feel her heart jumping in her chest, tried to tell herself her shallow breathing was only a matter of air quality. A voice called from inside.

‘_B’Vek, if you fetchers’ve gone and caught the blight again, you can pay for your _own_ bloody_-’

The cottage’s door swung outward, held open by a lanky arm, the gently wrinkled skin covered elbow to wrist in swirling blue ashlander tattoos. The ink had faded over the years, and in the darkness only a true friend would know to look for them.

Two women beheld each other for the first time in decades.

The woman in the doorway stopped short, mouth open, words dying on her lips. She stared for a long second, her face a stunned mask.

Saryoni broke the silence. ‘I… I apologise for coming here unannounced. I understand if you…’

‘Tholer?’ Addut-Lamanu’s voice wavered, as if addressing a ghost. ‘Is… is that you?’

Saryoni made to speak, but her throat had closed tight, and there were tears in her eyes. She nodded, as a sob shook her. ‘It’s me.’

Addut-Lamanu’s face opened like a sunrise.

‘_Ahhhhgh!!_’ she screeched like a cliff racer, wrapping her long arms around Saryoni, lifting her off her feet and birling her in a wide circle, a little whirlwind in the storm.

She returned her clumsily but safely to her feet, breathless and giggling and barely holding each other upright. Addut-Lamanu thumped Saryoni’s arm, quite stiffly. ‘You dozy fetching guar-humping _s’wit!_ Thought I’d lost my fucking marbles.’

Saryoni was pulled, once more, into a warm, enveloping embrace, a hand in her hair, laughing through her tears into Addut-Lamanu’s shoulder. For a moment, she forgot the ash storm, forgot the demons below Red Mountain, forgot everything but the heat and the smell of her old friend.

Addut-Lamanu released her. ‘By the holy golden tits of Almalexia. Never thought I’d see you again before the ancestors took us both.’ She sighed, her face still wrapt in joyous disbelief. ‘Well,’ she clapped a hand on Saryoni’s shoulder, ‘you’d best come in before we the ash beats them to it, and you with a fucking _lot _of explaining to do. You still take your tea with the leaves in?’

Saryoni wiped her eyes and nodded, and stepped out of the storm.

* * *

The woods around Gnaar Mok were thick and damp, every tree its own green village, from the carpet-thick lichen round the trunk to the birds’ thatches in the boughs. Though the rain had stopped falling, water still dripped from the branches, heavy and slow.

Back in the little cabin, Milo fried a handful of the thick, chewy mushrooms they’d picked, sizzling in their own juices like a rump steak. Folded between slices of the bread she’d picked up at Arille’s, and topped with a little of the rock salt Milo had produced from their travel kit, it was by some distance the best thing she’d tasted in Vvardenfell, top of an admittedly short list.

Oxton didn’t remember falling asleep, or getting into her hammock, and certainly not tucking the blanket around herself.

Light snuck under the cabin door. A scribbled note sat where Milo had slept. _Gone fishing_. Oxton looked at the ceiling. ‘Whichever of you divine dickheads is listening, please let this note be literal.’

Opening the door onto the village, Oxton shielded her eyes against the brilliant sunlight. When the world resolved into visibility, Gnaar Mok was hiving. Out in the bay, half a dozen sailboats lolled in the tide, casting their nets wherever the seabirds gathered. A group of children kicked a ball of ragcloth between themselves on a flat patch of earth in the centre of the village, observed by two old women, chatting animatedly and weaving intricate patterns in wool and thread.

Out on the dock, past where a ship the size of a house was unloading and reloading supplies, she spotted a blue robe and a mess of copper hair.

She strolled over and placed herself beside the priest, their legs dangling several feet above the water, a chunk of bait bobbing on the surface. Oxton could just about catch the scent of fried mushroom.

‘Oh hello, what time d’you call this?’ Milo gave a toothy smirk. ‘Topping up your beauty sleep?’

Oxton crossed her legs and straightened her back, stretching extravagantly. ‘This don’t happen by itself, love.’ She took a glance at her reflection in the water. There’s bed hair and there’s two weeks on the road and a damp hammock hair.

‘Yeah, well, you missed the whole morning. Sun does glorious things to the water in this part of the world.’ They nodded to a bucket and a stubby knife. ‘Know how to gut fish?’

‘Mate, I ain’t even had breakfast.’

‘That _is_ breakfast.’

‘Hm. Well, haven’t gutted a fish since my Wayrest days, but I doubt the theory’s changed much since then.’

‘Yep,’ Milo nodded, ‘just remember to scoop out the kidneys. Base of the spine. And keep the heads, they’re good for stock.’

The ship’s bell echoed out across the waves, blended with the rollicking commotion of the gulls, the water washing the shoreline in regular rhythm, the respiration of the ocean. Oxton found her groove quickly, popping her little blade along the scales, chucking the organs to the birds. A few minutes passed.

‘Fuck it,’ she said.

‘Fuck what.’

‘The whole thing. Nerevar. Red Mountain. Gods ‘n emperors ‘n all that.’

Milo chuckled. ‘Five minutes of manual labour and you’re set for life, huh?’

‘_Fuck_ yes,’ she tipped another skeleton back in the bucket, ‘I could totally be a fishwife.’

Milo laughed again, a little trill of delight. ‘Phewww. It’s a nice thought, I’ll give you that. No ordinators, no imps, no politics.’ They sighed raggedly. ‘Don’t suppose you’re in the market for a fishspouse.’

‘I could be persuaded.’

‘I bet,’ they grinned. A wave of worry crossed their face, though, just for a moment. They smiled again. ‘Hope we survive all this.’

Oxton paused, knife just below the fish’s skin. ‘You and me both, mate.’

‘Fish heads?’ A familiar voice came from behind them. ‘This one honours us.’

Oxton turned. ‘Oh, heya gran. Sleep well?’

Ana-Amari was already gnawing on a fleshy morsel. ‘Mhm, like a fuzzy kitten full of cream.’ She popped an eyeball between her teeth, clearly relishing it. ‘You smooth-skins throw away all the best bits. Shameful.’

Milo peered over their shoulder. ‘Three blessings, Ana-Amari. Any news from the big house?’

She shrugged impassively. ‘Better than most hobnobs of my acquaintance. Nothing worth stealing, before the kitten asks.’ She joined them on the lip of the dock, curling her tail in her lap. ‘There is a spare room in the workers’ quarters, if these two prefer the pleasure of lumbar support.’

Milo and Oxton shared a look. Hammocks are pleasant in theory, but the novelty wears thin.

‘I could be LaCroix’s servant for a decent bed,’ Oxton said, aloud.

Milo stifled a laugh. ‘Phrasing.’

Ana-Amari sighed deeply, tipped her fishbones into the bucket and chose to ignore whatever _that_ was. ‘Wonderful. Your den-mother asks Lady Arenim if she does not mind two more heads at her table this evening. _Civilised_ heads, who think before they wag their tongues, yes?’

Oxton crossed her heart as she flicked another set of guts into the crowd of gulls milling under her feet.

‘Ana-Amari will pass on the good news. One more thing,’ she stood, dusting off her jacket, ‘the servants weave such strange yarns to your den-mother.’

‘You know I love a good story, gran.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘No thief likes a story about themselves, kitten.’

Oxton frowned. ‘Eh?’

Ana-Amari surveyed the little village, bustling hither and yon, minding its business. ‘They tell tales of a benevolent spirit walking the roads of Vvardenfell. A spirit that buys an old elf his freedom in Balmora, that slays a daedra worshipper in Pelagiad, that heals the blight in Ald’ruhn, that exposes corruption in Vivec.’

‘Okay, one of them definitely ain’t me. Never been to Ald’ruhn in my puff.’

Milo reeled in another fish. ‘Anyone mention a ‘Nerevarine’?’

‘These are not words Dunmer shares with Khajiit. They say ‘spirit’, they say ‘will of the gods’. They do not say _which_ gods.’

Milo hummed pensively. ‘I’ll see if I can chat them up after dinner. Nice work, auntie.’

Ana-Amari gave a little salute and sauntered off toward the house, hands in her pockets, tail flicking merrily behind her. Oxton had never seen her so relaxed. Maybe the ocean air was doing her good.

Milo noticed the tension in Oxton’s shoulders. ‘You’re making waves.’

‘Yep. Yep yep.’ She clenched her jaw. ‘Just wish I had more control over them.’

‘Aye,’ Milo exhaled. ‘Not today, though, right? Today’s for fishing, and watching the sea.’

Oxton smiled and nodded. The water beneath her feet kept sweeping in, sweeping in, the seabirds kept up their song.

The sun stood high over Gnaar Mok, and would soon begin its descent.

* * *

Maar Gan had seen out the storm, for now.

Not long after her arrival at Addut-Lamanu’s cottage, Saryoni felt the weight of the past few days on her eyelids. It was all she could do to accept her friend’s offer of a bed, falling into a deep and dreamless sleep before her head hit the pillow.

She woke to the smell of fresh baked bread, a sweet and spicy aroma wafting up into her garret. She threw on her travelling robe and carefully descended the stairs. Addut-Lamanu was lifting a loaf out of the stone oven built into the wall of the cottage. She grinned at her arrival.

‘Aha, it’s _definitely_ you. The real Tholer would never set foot in the kitchen while there’s work to be done.’

Saryoni was taken aback by her candour. So many years, and it was like they hadn’t missed a day. She held up her hands. ‘You know me,’ she smiled. ‘How can I help?’

‘Put the kettle on,’ she nodded to the pot on the stove. ‘Leaves’re in the cupboard, should be water in the trough. You remember how to make your own tea, right?’

‘Addut-Lamanu,’ she squared her shoulders, ‘I’m the archcanon, not the Duke of Ebonheart.’

She cackled. ‘You’ve met him though, right?’

‘I certainly have!’ She filled the pot, flicked a little magic flame into the hearth. ‘Dreadful bore. Spoke of nothing but trade routes, legislation, and his horse, and not in that order.’ The small kitchen filled with a warm, yeasty scent as Addut-Lamanu broke the bread. ‘And his bread was horrid. What is that? Smells divine.’

‘Yam bread. Amazing what you can do with eggs and a little cinnamon.’

‘That’s… that’s _cake_.’

‘And I’ve got visitors! So it’s cake for breakfast. You’re lucky I haven’t got services at the Temple til this evening. Don’t suppose you fancy covering for me. When was the last time you led vespers?’

Saryoni dropped a small handful of dry leaves into the bubbling pot as she considered this. ‘Heavens. Probably before Vvardenfell opened for colonization, honestly.’ She felt a little unsteady as this little fact dawned on her. ‘But I’m keeping a low profile, best not to take risks.’

Addut-Lamanu smirked and shook her head. ‘Always the pragmatist. Suppose you don’t get to be archcanon without knowing how to delegate. C’mon, sit down while it’s warm, tea’ll be ready when it’s ready.’

As they talked, Saryoni found herself deflecting most of Addut-Lamanu’s questions about life in the Fane, feeling her hackles raise any time she travelled back there in her imagination, to that place of cunning manoeuvres, of quiet deals in secret rooms, of ambitious ordinators and ruthless priests. In the village of Maar Gan, with little more than a few layers of brick and mortar between oneself and the unforgiving ashlands, who could possibly care?

Her friend could care, she caught herself. Her oldest friend.

Something from the previous evening crossed her mind. ‘Do you happen to know the nightwatchman?’ she asked between bites of yam bread.

‘Sure I know young Saryn,’ she nodded, ‘it’s harder _not_ to know everyone round here. Why? You looking for a bodyguard?’

‘Gods help us if he’s our first choice,’ Saryoni smiled. ‘No, something he said last night: ‘sorry for your troubles’.’

Addut-Lamanu frowned. ‘Your _troubles_? He recognise you?’

‘No, no, I didn’t use my real name.’

‘What did you use?’

Saryoni swallowed, a little worry tugging at her heart. ‘Llevana Maesa.’

Addut-Lamanu tilted her head in disbelief. ‘Oh _Tholer_. The dogs in the _street_ know you ain’t a Maesa unless you’re lugging a yurt through the hills. What possessed you?’

She rubbed her jaw in thought. ‘I always used it down south, I just…’

‘Forgot it meant something different up here.’ She smiled indulgently at her. ‘It _has_ been a while.’

‘But,’ Saryoni couldn’t shake the anxiety. ‘If he thinks I’m from the tribes… do you think something’s happened up there? Have you heard from… from my mother recently?’

‘Not since last month,’ Addut-Lamanu shrugged. ‘Could ask him? He was probably just being polite.’

‘Hmm. Rather not blow my cover.’

Addut-Lamanu rolled her eyes. ‘B’_Vek_. The emperor ain’t got his bloody spies in the boonies, love. Unless they’re embedded in the yam farmer community.’

Saryoni hummed again. She didn’t look convinced.

Addut-Lamanu sighed. ‘Look. I’m due a visit up north next week, but I don’t mind bringing it forward for you. You’re headed that way anyway, may as well kill two birds. I’ll get Thalas to do prayers tonight, he owes me.’

‘Thalas? Not Thalas _Rendas_? He’s still here?’

Addut-Lamanu laughed. ‘Aye, we’ve made quite a team at the shrine. Didn’t you two… back in school?’

‘Oh _gods_. How do you remember that? _I _didn’t remember that.’

‘Sure you didn’t. Anyhow, I’ll head to the tradehouse, pick up some supplies, see if the Urshilaku need anything delivered. If we leave soon, there’s a campsite a little south of the tribal grazelands. You can manage another night under the stars, right?’

‘Provided you leave my youthful dalliances well enough alone.’

Addut-Lamanu placed three fingers over her heart. ‘Swear by the Three. Right,’ she clapped her hands, rubbed them together, ‘I’ll be back in half an hour, be ready to hit the trail by then?’

‘Of course.’

Addut-Lamanu opened the door, excitement legible on her face, ready for adventure. Saryoni called her just before she left. ‘Addut-Lamanu?’

‘Aye?’

She hunted for words, came up empty-handed. ‘Thank you.’

Addut-Lamanu waved it away. ‘I’m hardly even going out of my way, Tholer. Thank me when we get there. How long’s it been since you’ve seen your mam anyway? Must be even longer than me. B’_Vek_ we’re old. Right. Back in a jiffy.’

Suddenly, Saryoni was alone.

The last embers were fading in the hearth. She poured out the dregs of the tea into a cup and finished them, bitter and lukewarm. She tried to gather her thoughts. Packing was easy: she’d barely had time to _un_pack. Then a little thread snagged in her mind, a word Addut-Lamanu had said, ever so casually, which she hadn’t heard in an age.

_Urshilaku_. The people’s name for the people. Her people. Saryoni sat down on a kitchen chair as a thought passed through her mind, something she’d known as a fact for the best part of a week, but until that moment had seemed unreal, unbelievable.

She was going home.

* * *

Dinner at Arenim Manor was a terse affair. Almse Arenim was an austere Hlaalu functionary in her late middle age, precisely the type, Oxton guessed, to leave their most valuable possessions on extremely conspicuous show. A decent bed relied on her good behaviour, however, and she kept her hands to herself.

Arenim directed her conversation almost entirely toward LaCroix, inquiring after her alchemy business, the paucity of decent vintners this side of the Inner Sea, what a terrible nuisance it was that the ashlanders insisted on their lifestyles when there was such a better quality of life to be had under the Great Houses.

Milo had flicked a glance in Oxton’s direction that could’ve killed small mammals, and left the larger ones with a feeling of profound remorse.

LaCroix took to the role of liberal socialite like a fish to water, fawning over Arenim’s most meagre accomplishments, lamenting - of course! - that the ashlanders’ plight was pitiable, but surely state-mandated handouts were holding them back, and that of course, that her own operation - she indicated her 'colleagues' - was more like a family than a business. Oxton dropped a gag about forming a union that went down like a fart in church.

The sun had dropped below the horizon by the time the cheese course arrived.

‘Incredible,’ LaCroix lied, sampling a dainty mouthful, ‘I hardly had finer dining in Wayrest itself. This must be a Narsis vintage, no?’

Arenim looked delighted with herself. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, but the curds, whey and cultures are all produced right here in Gnaar Mok.’

‘Mon dieu.’ LaCroix raised a delicate hand to her heart in surprise. Oxton disguised a snort by coughing loudly, as though choking on a biscuit. ‘Well you must give your chef my sincerest regards,’ LaCroix continued, unabashed.

‘Pah,’ Arenim sneered, ‘it is the quality of the _ingredients_ that makes the cheese. That fool just checks in on it every few weeks. A dog could do it, and cheaper.’ It was at this moment that Oxton decided to steal the silverware.

‘But wherever do you find such high quality victuals in this wilderness?’ LaCroix asked, with a concerned frown. ‘You must be dreadfully well connected.’

‘Well,’ she gave a conspiratorial smirk. ‘It’s no secret that the Bitter Coast is a haven for smugglers and privateers and suchlike.’

LaCroix feigned astonishment. Oxton nearly choked on her food for real when she turned to the rest of the table for verification.

‘It’s true,’ Arenim continued. ‘And, for a small surcharge, one can source all sorts of finery. Take my silverware, for example.’ Ana-Amari’s eye met Oxton’s, and she shook her head very gently, eyebrow arched. ‘Or,’ Arenim’s face soured significantly, ‘until last month, at least.’

‘What happened last month, your grace?’ Milo interjected, curiosity getting the better of them.

‘Well, I only have the word of my staff to go on, so take it with a _generous_ pinch of salt, but they insist that all the smugglers previously running the Gnaar Mok route have been paid handsomely to pursue their affairs elsewhere. Most vexing. I suspect they are simply covering their own inability to keep me in decent cheese.’

Milo and Oxton shared an incredulous look. Oxton mouthed the words, _cosmic cheese_. They covered their face with a napkin, tears of mirth just forming in their eyes.

LaCroix kept Arenim occupied, staring daggers at the help. ‘But who could have orchestrated such a thing?’

Arenim flicked a hand dismissively. ‘Oh, some rot about cultists, the credulous s’wits. In this day and age, honestly.’

LaCroix struggled to keep her composure. ‘Cultists. _Bouf._ Where would they even hide such an elaborate operation,’ she asked, extremely innocently, over a sip of wine.

‘Well,’ Arenim shrugged, ‘there’s the old caverns in the islands north of town. _Ilunibi_, I think they call it. The servants say the place was cursed, years ago. More fairy tales, I fear.’

‘Ha ha ha,’ said LaCroix. ‘Ha ha ha.’

The sound of cutlery on emptying plates. Through the window, the regular wash of the sea.

‘Well,’ LaCroix announced briskly, dabbing her mouth with a small cloth, ‘we simply cannot thank you enough for a marvellous evening, but I simply must beg your forgiveness. I feel a sudden tiredness upon me.’

‘Oh,’ Arenim was concerned, ‘that’s awfully sudden, I’d hoped you’d stay to sample my wine, the summer produced a delightful vintage.’

‘I couldn’t possibly,’ LaCroix held up a hand, bowing slightly as she raised to her feet. Oxton glanced between her colleagues, who looked as antsy as she felt.

‘Nothing you ate, I hope.’

‘_No_,’ said LaCroix, sharply. ‘It is… my period. I am menstruating.’

Oxton choked on a lump of cheddar.

‘I… see.’ Arenim replied.

‘So you understand that I will take my leave. Now.’

Arenim blinked at her, her face a rictus mask.

LaCroix swept out of the room, and out of the house.

Milo, Oxton and Ana-Amari made noises of gratitude as they followed suit, Oxton hoping the clinking in her pockets wasn’t as audible as she suspected.

In a trice, Arenim was left with an empty table, and rather less tableware than she remembered.

‘_Out_landers,’ she sighed.

Oxton jogged back toward the cabin, pushing open the door only seconds after LaCroix had done likewise. She was already slipping on her midnight-dark leathers, sheathing a blade with a decisive _snap_.

‘Well, uh,’ Oxton offered, ‘that’s one way to make an exit.’

LaCroix pulled on her gloves, flexing her hands.

‘Can’t imagine we’ll get another invite,’ she continued.

‘Who gives a fuck.’

Oxton leaned back against the wall in a posture she hoped conveyed nonchalance. ‘Thought you liked the upper crust.’

LaCroix half-turned, made a face like she’d stepped in something. ‘If that petit bourgeois fool is an aristocrat then I am the Queen of Valenwood.’

Oxton nodded in agreement. ‘So,’ she kissed her teeth, ‘can’t help feeling you’ve an adventure planned.’

‘Your powers of perception are exceptional. You should be a spy for the emperor,’ LaCroix deadpanned, lacing her boots to the knee.

‘Without consulting us.’

LaCroix turned to face her, with genuine confusion, this time. ‘_Quoi?_’

Oxton folded her arms, as Milo and Ana-Amari stepped inside. ‘Look, I know I still owe you-’

‘Correct.’

‘- and you don’t exactly play well with others -’

‘And yet you insist on trying my patience.’

‘_But_,’ Oxton drew herself to her full height, looking the taller woman straight in the eye, ‘things are different now. And you know it.’

She rolled her eyes, moved to step past her. Oxton moved to intercept.

‘I’m serious. Look,’ Oxton risked placing a hand on LaCroix’s shoulder, ‘Amélie, maybe _you’ve_ got a death wish, and we can talk about that if you want, but I don’t, and I need you to stay _safe_. We don’t exactly have a lot of fighting experience to go around, and, if half of what Milo reckons is true, we’re gunna need you. _I’m_ gunna need you.’ She threw up her hands. ‘We’re all gunna need each other.’

The air in the cabin was heavy as LaCroix held her gaze, for a long moment. Then closed her eyes, exhaled, shook her head ever so slightly. ‘Fine.’

Oxton could hear Milo blowing out a sigh of relief behind her.

‘_But_,’ LaCroix continued, ‘we are going to find out what we can about this Ilunibi. It may be nothing, or it may be everything, and I need to know which.’

‘_We_ need to know. You gotta start thinking in ‘we’, mate.’

‘_By all the beshitten saints_ you are painful. Eh bien,’ she shrugged, ‘we go stealthy. You and I. A small team is less likely to draw attention.’

‘Ana-Amari will keep watch at ground level,’ stated the old thief. ‘Five eyes are better than four.’

‘I’ll stay nearby, see if I can’t get in to the northern watchtower,’ Milo shrugged. ‘Vivec willing, we won’t need a healer, but I’ll stay close.’

Oxton’s face lit up with determination.

LaCroix leaned down close to her, and whispered. ‘If you get caught again by one of these fils de merde, you cannot rely on me to charge in to save you. _I _also need _you_ to take care of yourself.’

Oxton nodded vigorously, forcing herself not to smile. ‘You got it, chief.’

‘Right, then,’ LaCroix faced her team, a brief look of uncertainty crossing her face, as if unused to addressing a working party, let alone one with such… _diverse_ talents. She seemed to reach a conclusion.

‘Let’s go hunting.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm thinking ahead now, and I reckon this is the half-way point. Gunna try and polish it off in seven more chapters (including a little epilogue, I think), so if I keep going at a chapter a month, should be done early next year!
> 
> Thanks *so* much to everyone who's read this far! All feedback is extremely welcome - this is by a country mile the longest thing I've ever written, so I'm in as much unfamiliar territory as Oxton and co.
> 
> Hope you're enjoying reading as much as I'm enjoying writing,  
Tx


	9. Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Bit of a long chapter, this, but I couldn't find a decent place to stop that wouldn't make for a really awful cliffhanger. Here goes...  
Tx

Ana-Amari held her paw up to the sky. She looked askance at her travelling companions, drew up her hood as the first flashes of rain sputtered into the marshy ground, thick drops falling from the tips of the trees.

LaCroix was marching toward the northernmost tip of the tiny archipelago north of the village, eyes fixed, shoulders square, head steady. Their host had identified the place as ‘Ilunibi’, an abandoned network of caves and, possibly, a base of the Sixth House cult.

Oxton hurried alongside her, trying to maintain an air of calm as she matched the taller woman’s pace. She thought of the moment Lady Arenim casually tossed out that word, _cultists_, how the air in the room turned. There had been flashes, a few drinks deep in Seyda Neen, and at dinner earlier, in which she’d seen outlines of the self behind LaCroix’s defences: her humour, charm, _humanity_. And with a single word, saw those defences slam shut. A curse on the careless tongues of aspiring functionaries. Gods willing, Oxton gazed at the thick clouds hiding the stars, it would all come to nothing. She was overdue a little luck, she figured.

Ana-Amari jogged to catch up with them both, shoulders hunched against the gathering storm.

‘Does the kitten have supplies?’ The old Khajiit was hoking through her pack. ‘Ana-Amari has a spare healing tonic, a _decent_ lockpick, not that brittle garbage from the mainland…’

Oxton smirked and put a hand on her paw. ‘Granny, relax. Ain’t many locks in a cave, last time I went spelunking.’

Ana-Amari growled softly. ‘Well then, no reason not to take the potion.’

‘Granny…’

‘_This one_-’ Ana-Amari interrupted, a little sharpness between her teeth, ‘this one will stop being such an obstinate creature and accept a gift from her den-mother. None shall say Ana-Amari left a kitten ill-prepared.’

‘Alright, alright!’ She accepted the little clay vial and slipped it into her bag. ‘Anyway, Amélie’s taking the lead this time. No-one’s gunna get the drop on us.’

Ana-Amari gave her a playful slap on the cheek. ‘This one is tempting the gods,’ she pointed. ‘And has a short memory.’

LaCroix looked over her shoulder. ‘Quiet,’ she ordered.

‘If the tall one commands it.’

LaCroix looked at her.

Ana-Amari shrugged, signed to Oxton in thieves’ cant, _A tight-strung bow is likeliest to snap_.

Oxton grinned, flicked her hands, _A sleepy cat catches no mice_.

Ana-Amari waved her away in mock affront. They walked on in silence, the hush of perfectly vertical rainfall covering their footsteps. The islands north of Gnaar Mok were little more than a patchwork of marshy ponds and stretches of land barely wide enough to drive a guar. Narrow planks, perhaps left by enterprising locals, reached from shore to shore, and each isle looked a decent-sized wave away from being swallowed by the sea.

LaCroix signalled them to stop as they approached the crossing to the northernmost strip. A few bedraggled trees were dotted round a pool of brackish water like mourners at a grave, luminescent fungi turning their roots a sickly blue. At the far side, an outcropping jutted up above sea-level, weirdly out of place. As Oxton’s eyes focused in the darkness, she could swear blind there was…

‘A _door!?_’

‘Quiet,’ LaCroix repeated, and there was steel in it.

Oxton’s voice was barely a whisper above the sound of rain and the gathering wind. ‘Who in blazes puts a pissing _door_ on a cave.’

LaCroix didn’t blink.

‘Shit.’

‘It may be only a smuggler’s den,’ Ana-Amari suggested. ‘They oftentimes weave fairy tales among villagers to scare off the curious and foolhardy.’

Her suggestion hung in the air, a hopeful anchor to normality, or something like it.

‘Perhaps so,’ LaCroix said at last, casting an eye over the entry. ‘We do not know enough about this whole,’ she waved a hand, ‘conspiracy. We may hardly have scratched the surface.’

‘Yeah,’ Oxton nodded, ‘maybe it goes all the way to the top.’

‘Precisely.’

‘And we’re moments away from blowing this thing wide open.’

LaCroix hummed, noncommittal.

‘And we’re a bunch of die hard mavericks who don’t play by the rules, don’t know when to quit, and don’t take no for an answer.’

Ana-Amari signed surreptitiously, _Playing with fire_.

With shocking speed, LaCroix lifted Oxton off her feet and pinned her against a tree trunk by the lapels. LaCroix had barely steadied herself before she felt the air shoot from her lungs as something heavy smashed into her diaphragm, sending her flat on her back and Oxton scrambling clear.

LaCroix cursed with shock and pain as she propped herself upright, as Ana-Amari set herself between the assassin and the thief, shaking the pain out of her left paw. The Khajiit squatted down on her haunches, more than arm’s reach from LaCroix, her face like thunder, her tail twitching left and right.

‘Apologies, young blade,’ she said, low and careful. ‘Ana-Amari is the protective type.’

‘Mate, it’s fine, I shouldn’t’ve-’ Oxton started, before her den-mother raised a paw for silence.

‘The kitten is dealing with her nerves, however foolishly. The spider,’ she gave LaCroix a steady look, ‘is merely foolish. There is something that she is keeping from us, something that provokes such foolishness, and Ana-Amari would prefer that she share it.’

LaCroix held her gaze for a long moment, managing her breath, suppressing the urge to pull the wind back into her lungs in gulps. ‘Without me, she would be dead,’ she stated, a fraction short of a hiss.

‘This does not make her your prisoner, spider. Nor your toy.’

Oxton stepped in. ‘It’s fine, gran. We’ve all got secrets.’ She held out a hand to LaCroix. The assassin took it, Oxton taking the strain gamely as she returned to her feet. As she made to leave, Oxton held on tight, looking up into the taller woman’s eyes. ‘And I’m done trying to make her talk.’

She strode off toward the cave entrance, her footsteps heavy on the wet earth. 

LaCroix made to follow her, but felt an arm on her elbow, gently this time. Ana-Amari looked briefly at her boots before catching her gaze. ‘Is this one here?’

LaCroix glanced toward the young thief, then to her den-mother, then nodded.

The old Khajiit exhaled. ‘Fine. We shall have plenty of time for chin-wagging and truth-telling on friend Milo’s boat, yes?’ She enjoyed the look of nausea as it lurched across the assassin’s face, then patted her arm. ‘If we are to survive all of this, we must be family, and families are tricksy things.’

LaCroix massaged her ribs. ‘Sometimes they sucker punch one another?’

‘Only when they act the maggot,’ Ana-Amari drawled. ‘You need not travel far with the kitten to know she likes an open book. And you… well.’ She glanced over at Oxton, who was surveying the area around the door for traps, smugglers’ marks, anything that might give away a secret. ‘And yet, she likes you. A puzzlement, is it not?’

LaCroix folded her arms. ‘_Like_ is a strong word.’

‘Is it.’ Ana-Amari strolled toward the island’s edge. Across the bay, a flock of cliff racers were dive-bombing into the water, their huge forms barely making a sound as they pierced the surface, crying in triumph or anguish as they emerged. ‘It would be easy to curse you and run, and yet she stays, and demands you be better. What does one call that?’

‘You are an optimist.’ A pause. ‘And you barely know her either.’

Ana-Amari tilted her head in thought. ‘Khajiit has been wrong in the past, albeit rarely.’

Oxton spoke without looking at them as their wet footsteps approached. Her fringe was glued to her forehead, and water dripped steadily down her nose. ‘Enjoy chatting about yours truly?’

‘Uh…’ Lacroix began.

‘Oh bully, I was just joking, but that’s actually what you were doing. Great.’ She wiped the mud off her hands onto her soaked leathers. ‘Well, the good news is the door ain’t magic, or cursed, or whatever the fuck. Just a door. On an island. To a cave. Fucking standard.’

‘We only spoke so friend LaCroix might know the best way to apologise.’ There was a twinkle in the old Khajiit’s eye.

Oxton clocked it. ‘Oh yeah? Jolly good.’ She lifted a dainty hand in a queenly fashion. ‘You may kiss my ring.’

LaCroix blinked slowly at Ana-Amari, in whose mouth butter would not melt. She pouted indifferently. ‘Eh bien, if I must.’

‘Oh, uh, I-’ Oxton was taken aback. It was too late.

LaCroix wrapped long fingers around Oxton’s outstretched hand, a firm grasp at once delicate and inescapable. She bowed her head a little to the thief’s eye level, their gaze locked, the assassin glancing up past her ever-so-slightly raised brow. She laid a kiss high on Oxton’s ring finger, light as a moth, lips leaving a trace of warmth in the chill night air.

Her jaw hung lightly ajar. Perhaps she only imagined a suppressed snort from her den-mother.

What else passed through her imagination was nobody’s business.

LaCroix drew herself back to her full height, exhaling languidly. ‘Voilà,’ she smiled coolly. ‘I _apologise._’

Rain pattered steadily on the trees. Ana-Amari broke the silence. ‘Well?’

Oxton blinked at her. ‘Ehn?’

‘Does the kitten accept the nice murderer’s apology? Or shall we stand in the rain till our boots dissolve?’

‘Oh. Uh. Yep, reckon that was, uhm. Good! Enough. Good enough.’ She turned to the door, fumbling a lockpick into the mud as she drew it from a pocket.

LaCroix studied some distant point on a neighbouring island.

As Oxton brushed the mud off the pick and raised it to the solid wooden door, it slowly, wilfully, swung open. The only sound was the echo of rushing water deep within. 

Oxton turned to her companions with a look of profound unease. ‘Did you…?’

Ana-Amari shook her head as she stepped lightly to the doorway, allowing a second for her Khajiit eyes to adapt to the near-perfect darkness. ‘Ana-Amari knows few smugglers’ dens with such obliging security.’ She turned to LaCroix, blinking in the midnight gloom. ‘If there is evil below, it may be expecting us. We could return another day.’

‘No. There will not be another day. Even in this backwater there are bound to be loose tongues and gossip for sale, and we had best be elsewhere when a deal is made.’

‘Well, it is fortunate we have kept a low profile,’ Ana-Amari gave LaCroix a straight look.

‘Not that I ain’t glad we’ve got enemies in common,’ Oxton pulled her jacket around her against the cool air of the cave, ‘but I gotta know what they did to piss you off this bad.’

LaCroix folded her arms. ‘This is neither the time nor the place.’

‘...’

‘Fine, it is the time _and_ the place but it is still none of your business. Here,’ she fished a small potion from her bag, ‘drink this, it will help with the dark.’

‘Changing the subject, is it?’

‘Do you want to fight a cult in pitch darkness or not.’

‘Stendarr’s saggy nutsack, give it here.’

She knocked back the bitter mixture with a scowl. ‘All that magic and your brews still taste like wet feet.’ She shielded her eyes as the island lit up like a spring afternoon. Turning to the cave, she could pick out the cracks in the rock, a passage about eight feet high and wide, leading downward into the earth, a narrow stream trickling down the middle like a Labortown gutter.

‘You are sure you wish to remain on the surface?’ LaCroix asked the old thief. ‘Things may play out as they did previously, and there may be safety in numbers.’

Ana-Amari looked unconvinced. ‘Fewer hiding places on an island than the Vivec underworks. And friend Milo has the best view in the house,’ she jerked a thumb toward the town’s watchtower, briefly wondered what they’d made of that brief… altercation.

‘Fine.’ Hand on the blade at her waist, she downed a potion of her own and stepped through the door, her eyes taking on a faint purplish glow. Oxton took a deep breath. A firm hand around her shoulder.

‘Swift hunting, kitten,’ said Ana-Amari.

Oxton gave a smile and leant her head on her den-mother’s shoulder. ‘Just a trip to the greengrocer’s,’ she said, and walked into the dark.

* * *

Among its many peculiarities, Vvardenfell province is as much below ground as above. Between the vast fortresses of the ancient dwarves, the mineral extraction camps of the Empire, the traditional burial sites of the native Dunmer, or the natural grottos and caverns favoured by smugglers, necromancers, cultists, and occasionally all three in concert, an underground chamber is as commonplace as a walk in the park.

Provided that park had no natural light, a non-zero number of secret exits, and lay, for better or worse, far beyond the reach of the authorities.

For a student of Mysticism like Oxton, the stacked, twisting layers of passageways and burrows ruled out her greatest asset, her ace in a very deep hole. The masters at the mages’ college told horror stories about botched underground teleportation, and she was in no hurry to test their veracity.

She pictured the branching paths in her mind as they walked, leaving markers at intersections with a stub of charcoal, the walls of the cave strangely warm to the touch, almost soft under her fingers. At one bend in the passage, a pool of water had separated from the main stream, forming what she might have called a rock pool had she been at the seaside in Wayrest. No more than a foot across, but of a depth impossible to discern, the little sink was surrounded by the same vivid, turquoise fluorescent mushrooms she’d spotted on the surface, a tiny oasis in the dark, thousands of years in the making. _Violet coprinus,_ _glow at sundown_, said a voice in Oxton’s mind. The passages led down and down.

They had been investigating, slowly and methodically, for a what must have been half an hour, without seeing hide nor hair of man or mer. LaCroix hadn’t breathed a word below the surface. The little waterway swelled as they walked, until it occupied half of the tunnel, a low growl, building in volume.

As they reached a corner, the assassin held out an arm, gently blocking Oxton’s shoulders. The thief peered ahead into the dark. About ten yards ahead of them, the rushing water became a full-throated bellow as it plunged down a sheer drop. LaCroix dropped to her haunches, signalled her companion to follow in kind.

Had it not been for the possibility of sudden death, Oxton might have marvelled at the sight.

A colossal chamber, too vast to be carved by mortal hands, falling into a chasm even her magical vision couldn’t fathom, and rising to a ceiling that must have been close to touching the surface. Oxton couldn’t tell if the jagged shapes far above her were stalactites or tree roots. The little waterway crashed into the void, filling the room with an almost bestial roar.

LaCroix drew her attention to the matter at hand. She pointed two fingers at Oxton’s eyes, then toward an outcropping a little further along the path. On a large, flat shelf of rock, about twenty yards across, was a shrine, just like the one in the Vivec catacombs. Unlike their previous venture, however, the fine layers of lichen and cobwebs suggested no-one had worshipped here in a very long time.

The assassin moved forward, a little less cautiously, though her right hand stayed at the hilt of her dagger. Oxton walked behind her, marvelling at the grandeur of the place. Eldritch mystery cult or not, she understood why someone might consider this place holy. She felt miniscule.

As LaCroix picked her way between pools of standing water to investigate the shrine, Oxton dared a peek over the edge of the sheer drop. Settling onto her knees, then her torso, on the peculiar warmth of the cave floor, she stretched forward.

About forty feet below, the falling water turned the paddles of an old metal wheel. Though the sound was lost far below, its jerky, eccentric rotation suggested years, perhaps decades of neglect. It was unclear what it had been, or still was, powering. Something else caught her eye, then. The wheel hung over the edge of another rocky shelf, much like the one she lay upon; straining her eyes, she could see something, hovering on the edge of vision, a dim bluish glow like the mushrooms in the tunnel, but… was that a shadow? A foot, treading away into the gloom?

She felt a firm tap on her shoulder. She turned, ready for a firm rebuke from her impatient colleague.

Oxton found herself eye-to-eye with the cold, emotionless visage of an Ordinator.

As shards of pure ice swept through her nerves, she barrel-rolled frantically to the side, dislodging a few loose stones into the abyss as she improvised into a defensive stance. She snatched her silver dagger from its cloths and aimed it square at…

LaCroix, wearing an Ordinator’s helmet over her fist like a sock puppet, smiling like a cat full of cream. Her shoulders were shaking, ever so slightly.

The creativity of the thief’s hail of curses were lost among the sound of falling water.

The assassin reached a hand and pulled her to her feet, Oxton scrunching her face at her companion in disgust. She snatched the helmet from her, and, resisting the urge to toss it into the pit, turned it over in her hands. A grim face she’d seen a hundred times in just a few days in Vivec. The consistency of the armorers’ work was remarkable: one Ordinator could truly stand for any other. Terrifying in concept and in practice, and the craftsmanship was a good foil against forgery. She made some quick motions with her free hand. _You sign?_

_Little_, LaCroix responded. _Understand_.

_Where’d you find this?_

The assassin nodded toward what looked like a low metal trough, sitting snugly behind the raised platform of the shrine. Inside was a full set of Ordinator armour, from the blue and gold flashes of the pauldrons to the thick-soled, heavy-wearing boots. Unlike the filthy and neglected shrine proper, the armour gleamed, immaculate. Oxton could see neither dents nor cracks, no sign it had seen use between leaving the smithy and finding itself in a cave, many miles from any temple. Either it was brand new or had only one extremely careful owner. She turned to her companion with a look of profound disquiet, awestruck by the mysteries all around her.

_Mate, what the fuck._

LaCroix shrugged. _Disguise? Stolen?_

_‘Disguise’?_

Another shrug. _No one stops Ordinators. I want to do bad. I dress as Ordinator._

_Fuck._ Oxton ran her hand through her hair. _Fuck!_ She ran the implications through her mind. How do you steal from an Ordinator? Was it an inside job? Were Ordinators part of the cult? Milo seemed to think they’d stop at nothing to suppress the Nerevarine prophecies, but this? _Fuck!!_

_Yes_, signed LaCroix. _Fuck_. She tested out the sign with her hands, pleased to have learned a new word. _Fuck_, _fuck_, _fuck_.

_Someone’s in a good mood_.

The assassin looked nonplussed. _Close to answers_.

_Answers? To what?_

LaCroix gestured broadly at the world.

_If you say so. _A thought popped into Oxton’s mind. She walked over to the edge of the rock face, beckoning LaCroix to join her. She pointed to the lower rocky shelf, where she’d seen the glow moments earlier.

LaCroix squinted. _What?_

_Look_, Oxton signed excitedly, _the light!_

LaCroix frowned into the abyss, gave the thief a look of concern. _Potion bad?_

Oxton looked.

There was only darkness. She leapt to her feet. _No! There was a light! Just now! Further down!_

LaCroix motioned for calm.

_Don’t you…! _She took a deep breath. _Something very weird here. Don’t like it. Maybe we should go back, maybe…_ she spotted something over LaCroix’s shoulder, down the passageway opposite the one they’d entered. A bluish glow, a fraction lighter than before, just touching the furthest surface visible from where she stood. LaCroix followed her companion’s line of sight, saw what she saw. If it unnerved her, she made no visible sign.

She made eye contact with Oxton. _Follow?_

Oxton looked back up the tunnels, the charcoal marks on the pale cavern walls still visible from where she stood. Now they knew the way, they could be outside and gone in minutes.

She looked LaCroix in the eye, and nodded. _Follow_.

* * *

The cavern walls became narrower as they descended, the sound of the waterfall fading, but never quite gone. Now that Oxton could communicate vocally, though, she felt little inclination to do so. The Ordinator’s armour had been the only sign that anyone had set foot in these passages in years, but it was hardly reassuring.

The body they found, even less so.

As the passage turned a corner, it lay splayed out across their path, like it had fallen asleep and forgotten to wake.

LaCroix approached it with extreme caution. Lifting a nearby pebble, she tossed it at its head.

It struck right between the eyes with a soft thud before skittering away. The head lolled unnaturally to one side.

‘Oi!’ Oxton slapped her arm.

‘What? It is dead, and might have been trapped, or trip-wired,’ LaCroix protested.

‘‘_It_’ used to be someone!’

‘And now it is not.’ 

‘That what they teach you at murderer college?’

‘Yes.’

Oxton blinked. ‘Well, they _shouldn’t_.’ She stepped gingerly toward the body. Closer up, the skin seemed to be peppered with deep sores and lesions, the flesh eaten away in places, horribly swollen in others. She frowned slightly. ‘Smell that?’

LaCroix lifted her nose. ‘No?’

‘Right? And I’m guessing this lad’s been here a while.’

The assassin frowned, stepped closer, finally getting a good look at the same ruined skin as Oxton had. Her expression hardened. ‘Perhaps you should step back.’

‘Fine by me, mate. Not like I’m taking him with us.’

As Oxton backed away, the assassin muttered some words of old Almeris, fire magic materialising in her open palm. She looked to her companion. ‘Turn away.’

Even squeezing her eyes up tight, Oxton blinked for a long minute before the cave returned to visibility, reforming in blotches of vivid crimson and violet. The body was all but gone, and the walls of the cave charred black in a ragged sphere around the impact. LaCroix had drawn her weapon from its scabbard, and was already moving on.

Oxton caught her up. ‘Never seen skin like that. Must’ve had something horrible.’

‘Nor have I, in the flesh, so to speak. But I know the disease. From stories. I did not quite believe them until just now.’

‘Well, _that_ doesn’t sound promising.’

‘Hm. The Dunmer call it _corprus_, the divine disease. It comes from where the ash storms are most intense, around Red Mountain. It attacks the skin, then the nerves, then the mind. There is no cure, and they burn the bodies where they fall.’

‘Gods below. Is that why he hadn’t, y’know, rotted?’

‘No. It had not rotted because it was not dead.’

Oxton stopped in her tracks. ‘_Pardon_.’

‘The disease was forged by a cruel god, Lena. The victim is made immortal, but only technically. They become completely immune to disease, and do not appear to age. But they gradually lose control over body and mind.’ She shivered a little at that. ‘They say the lucky ones escape to the wilderness and die in peace.’

‘And the unlucky ones get incinerated in a cave.’

‘No. The unlucky ones survive.’

Oxton’s mouth felt dry as she swallowed. ‘So… if it’s spread by the ash storms, how’d he get all the way down here?’

‘Precisely.’

LaCroix walked on, her footsteps echoing through the passage. Oxton couldn’t help turning back as she followed. She couldn’t help imagining the stranger’s last days, how far he wandered till he found the cave, what passed through his mind before it left him. She almost walked right into LaCroix.

She was pointing toward the end of the corridor, where it opened into another large chamber. ‘There. The far corner.’

Oxton squinted. It was a bluish light, but it was more like the sickly glow of mushrooms than whatever had caught her eye minutes earlier. She shrugged. ‘Worth scoping out, I guess. But honestly, mate, I really fancy getting topside, regrouping with the gang. Dunno how much we’re gunna learn from an abandoned cave with cop armour and a deep-fried zombie. Maybe we could take the Ordinator gear with us. Hand it over to Arenim for some brownie points.’

‘Some what?’

‘Brownie points. Y’know the Brownies, the kids’ group in Wayrest. They get orphans to do odd jobs and good deeds and that.’

‘Fascinating.’

‘Can’t believe you never heard of em.’

‘I suspect we moved in very different circles in Wayrest, Lena.’

‘Is that a new thing you’re doing?’

‘I do not know what you are talking ab-’

She waved a hand. ‘Yeahyeahyeah, you’re calling me ‘Lena’ now. How come?’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘What did you and gran talk about?’

It was far too dark to tell whether LaCroix was blushing, but she certainly looked affronted. Whether at herself or the thief’s line of questioning was up for debate. She started forward, the large chamber looming larger and closer. She sighed audibly as she sheathed her blade with a hard click. ‘We will reconnoitre this room, then rejoin the others. Perhaps this was all for naught. And if you must ask, this is hardly the ideal time to-’

‘Nah,’ Oxton began to enjoy her discomfort, ‘let’s do it now! Hammer out some misapprehensions where we won’t be interrupted.’

LaCroix turned to face her straight on, looming a little into her personal space. ‘Fine,’ she said through gritted teeth, ‘I apologise for earlier, truly. I let my temper get the better of me. We are on the same… _team_, and my conduct was,’ she reached for the word, ‘unbecoming.’

‘Decent of you. And _not_ the question I asked, don’t think I didn’t notice. But suit yourself,’ she interrupted the assassin’s protestation. ‘I’ll even let you off the hook if you give us the how and why of you and Jobasha getting mixed up in all this. Clearly it ain’t just a hobby to you.’

LaCroix looked away in frustration, but something seemed to catch her eye, and for a second her face fell.

Oxton took note. ‘Oh yeah, more games, is it.’

LaCroix waved for silence.

‘_I don’t bloody well-_‘

Before she could blink, the assassin had pushed her back against the cave wall, one arm around her back, pressing Oxton tight against her chest, her other hand clamped around her companion’s mouth. She could feel her breath against her forehead, moving the loose hairs at her fringe. LaCroix’s eyes had not moved from a point in the middle distance, and the look of furious confusion was one the thief hadn’t seen before. She turned her head, her nerves rattling.

Bathed in a pale blue light, moving silently from the left side of the chamber to the right, close enough to hear where her footsteps should have been, was Lady Amélie Guillard LaCroix.

LaCroix - the one holding her in a deathgrip, the _real_ one - was pressed so close Lena could feel her heartbeat. It was racing, and her jaw was clenched tight. The blue LaCroix looked blankly in their direction.

She made no sign of recognition, and moved silently on.

In the chamber was a great stone hearth, the fire roaring. It hadn’t been there an instant earlier. Oxton blinked, and the chamber was an office fit for a duke, as if it nothing were amiss. At regular intervals along the wall were heraldic banners she recognised from her days in Wayrest, though she couldn’t name the families they denoted. Above the hearth, a larger than life painting, in rich, dark oils, of a man with LaCroix’s nose and eyes.

The blue glow began to fade, like a trick of the light, and she got a good look at the other LaCroix. She looked a few years younger, a little fuller in the cheeks, a little softer round the eyes. Oxton turned to look at her own LaCroix, and found she was alone.

And her own body was swathed in pale blue light.

Before Oxton could process what was happening, she could hear voices, as if through a thick stone wall, speaking animatedly in Breton, accents that could cut glass.

The young LaCroix was carrying a ledger. She was followed by an older woman with LaCroix’s jaw. Neither looked pleased.

‘_Amélia_, we’ve been over this-’

‘Like _hell_ we have!’ LaCroix’s voice was at a pitch Oxton had never heard before. She was visibly agitated, and the hand that held the book was shaking. She folded her arms across her chest to hide it. ‘Every time bring it up, he just brushes me off like a child!’

‘Well, darling, perhaps if you hadn’t caused such a fuss at school…’

‘No. _No_, you cannot _still_ be using that against me. Not when you have seen with your own eyes…!’

The woman shrugged and shook her head impatiently. ‘I don’t know what I’ve _seen_, Amélia, and your father knows enough about his own _business_…’

‘-to know how to hide it from us?’

‘-to not make such wildly unscrupulous manoeuvres as you _seem_ to be alleging. Our family’s name is _synonymous_ with philanthropy and fair-handedness.’

‘In _Wayrest,_ certainly. But what does our name mean in,’ she flipped through the ledger, ‘the province of _Vvardenfell_?’

‘Well now, Amélia, I’m sure I don’t know what you expect me to tell you. I have never even heard of… that place. Some farflung _colony_ no doubt.’ She spoke the word like a curse.

‘So you agree it is nowhere for our name to find itself.’

She frowned in frustration. ‘You are being clever again.’

‘I suppose you shouldn’t have sent me to that school.’

‘For the _connections_, Amélia, no-one expected you... _gods below_, couldn’t you take the hint when they threw you out of those classes? Disrupting economics lessons, dressing in _breeches and tails_, of all the …!’

‘Forgive me, I forgot we run the municipal bakery.’

‘Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, _Amélia_.’

‘And avoiding the question is what, exactly? How do you explain,’ she ran a finger down a column, ‘forty-_thousand_ drakes of _pure profit_ in just over a month!? We could buy King Eadwyre’s chateau by next winter!’

‘And what would be so terribly wrong with that!?’

LaCroix tilted her head in exasperation. ‘_Mother_, you cannot turn your head from this so easily! You _know_ this kind of money only comes to smuggler lords and robber barons. You see how he gets when I try to speak to him!’

‘What I _know_, Amélia,’ she pointed a finger at her daughter’s chest, ‘is what keeps you in your fine gowns, and your fine university, with all your _fine_ ideas, and what keeps this family _safe_.’

‘_Safe!?_ And what of the people in Vvardenfell, whose backs we break for our fine gowns, henh? Who is keeping _them _safe?’

‘Oh!’ The older woman threw up her hands, barking a high-pitched laugh, devoid of mirth. Clearly something had broken the tension, on her part, at least. LaCroix looked crestfallen. ‘There you go. Your bleeding heart for the wretched smallfolk of… wherever.’

‘Vvardenfell, mother.’

‘Yes, they sound _awfully_ exotic. And I’m sure you, _Lady Amélia Guillard LaCroix of Wayrest_, know _precisely_ what is best for them.’

Amélie’s face fell, her lips drawn into a thin line, and her knuckles tightened around the book. Something was breaking in her, and Oxton felt every inch of it.

‘So that is it, then.’ Her voice was wavering. Oxton could barely recognise the woman whose blade she’d almost tasted more than once.

Her mother was already walking briskly away. She lifted a flower from one of the vases by the door, twirled it in her fingers. ‘That is what, darling. Come now, don’t mumble.’

‘All our family stands for. All the charity, all the good works bearing our name. All,’ she held the book aloft like a grim trophy, ‘for sale, with enough distance, enough… plausible deniability.’

She inhaled the flower’s scent, smiled. ‘Poor Amélia. Past her twentieth year and only just learning how the world turns. Those jewels you’re wearing. Do you think the poor creature who hauled them out of the ground lives in a chalet? Do you think the privvies at your college are cleaned by pixies? Everyone has their place, darling.’ She closed the distance between them, took the book from her hand, replaced it with the flower from the vase. ‘Even you. Now come along. Luncheon will be ready presently. You remember the Amedees, don’t you? Decent people, and they have a son with most excellent prospects...’

‘I’m not going.’

She sighed at the doorway. ‘Suit yourself, Amélia, you always do.’ She rearranged the flowers to hide their missing sister.

‘I’m going to Vvardenfell.’

Her mother laughed over her shoulder as she left. ‘Wonderful notion, darling. Perhaps you’ll find the people there more amenable to your little utopia. Do send a postcard.’

The young LaCroix was alone. The flower dropped from her hand, and she studied her rings, the fine metallurgy, the brilliant stones. One by one, she yanked them off, and tossed them into the fire. She looked up at the man in the painting, eyes full of tears.

Oxton felt something humming vigorously behind her eyes as the world came back into focus, precisely as it had been. LaCroix’s arm was still pressed hard into Oxton’s back, but the other had moved from her mouth to cover the assassin’s own eyes. Oxton moved to touch her, but the assassin flinched bodily, stepping smartly away from her, avoiding her eyes. Her cheeks were blotchy with tears, and her shoulders sagged inward.

‘Lord Nerevar.’

LaCroix snapped around like a wild animal. Oxton made to move out of the shadows, but LaCroix held a palm slightly aloft, with a sign. _Wait. Think._

Oxton stayed still, hardly breathing, peering from behind a rock into the darkness. In the centre of the chamber, was a shrine, much like the one they’d encountered earlier. This one, however, was… _alive_ was the wrong word, but it was the only one that seemed to make sense in Oxton’s mind. Smoke rose from the earth to the ceiling, from nowhere into nowhere.

It silhouetted a cloaked figure, around LaCroix’s height, though their proportions seemed all wrong. They seemed to be unarmed, but Oxton knew that meant very little. Every fibre in her being screamed to grab the assassin’s arm, and run, and run, and get on the boat, and sail far, far away. But the sign stuck in her mind. _Wait. Think_.

‘I bear a message for you, from Dagoth Ur, Awakened Lord of the Sixth House.’ The voice was smooth, warm, assured, as if a Hlaalu councillor were off-stage and throwing their voice. The figure was motionless. ‘Come to cast down false gods, drive foreigners from the land, and-’

‘-restore the ancient glory of Morrowind, yes, I am familiar with his work,’ LaCroix finished. ‘The last of your kind to say these words had refined silver for her last meal.’

The figure turned their head sideways, as if slapped. In profile, Oxton could see not the outline of any human face, but a mess of grotesque protuberances, like the maw of a nix-hound. They recovered their cool demeanour.

‘The Sixth House greets you, Lord Nerevar. I am known as Dagoth Gares, priest of Ilunibi Shrine. My Lord, Dagoth Ur, has informed me of your coming. I wish that this time you had come to honor your Lord's friendship, not betray it.’

‘We all have wishes, demon. I, for example, wished never to think of my mother again.’

The figure made a hum, of curiosity, or amusement. ‘Merely a taste of the power, over body, mind and soul, you might enjoy at my Lord’s side, Lord Nerevar. Many ages hence, you struck down Lord Dagoth, yet he offers his hand in friendship, if you would join his service, to forge the better world of which you both once dreamed.’

‘And you will achieve this with visions of my mother? I have heard better plans, demon.’

‘I am no demon.’ Their patience was wearing thin. ‘Your mother, however…’

LaCroix drew her blade with a sound that sang through the echoing halls. She began stalking in a broad arc, circling the figure, eyes fixed, body poised.

‘...was enthralled by the things of this gross, material world, Lord Nerevar. Dagoth Ur dreams of more than jewels and honorifics and the petty hierarchies you escaped in this incarnation. He dreams of freedom, as you do. He dreams of justice for his people, as you do.’

‘I have seen enough of what your _people_ consider justice, demon. How many bodies did you make clearing the way for your _Lord_?’

‘And you most of all, Lord Nerevar, should know the necessity of a few sacrifices.’

‘Always a catch,’ she snarled. ‘You are wasting your final breaths.’

‘So be it,’ the figure sighed. ‘But House Dagoth comports itself with honour. You may strike the first blow.’

‘Unwise,’ said the assassin.

Light as a breeze, quick as thunder, she closed the distance between them in an instant, spinning in a tight arc before bringing her blade down overhand toward Dagoth Gares’ throat.

At the final moment, so fast they hardly seemed to move, Gares caught the dagger in their hand. Dark blood seeped from where the razor’s edge bit into their flesh. They turned their ruined face to LaCroix, her muscles straining in the attempt to free her blade. ‘Honour also dictates, however, that I may defend myself.’

Quick as a blink, Gares struck LaCroix with an open palm in the sternum, a sickening thud echoing through the chamber as she hit the earth and kept skidding. Gares removed the blade from their hand with a wet sound and tossed it aside, clattering into the shadows. They stalked toward where LaCroix was desperately backpedalling, favouring her chest, struggling to inhale.

‘I have waited so many years,’ Gares explained, ‘watching as my servants came, and went, gained enlightenment, only to sicken, and die, waiting for _this_. So many False Incarnates. So many false dawns. And my Lord was so certain about you. So convinced that you were different. An _outlander_,’ they spat, wet on the cavern floor, ‘of all _things_.’ They raised a hand, suddenly encircled in arcane symbols, that lifted LaCroix clear off the ground. ‘So weak, like all the others.’

LaCroix kicked her legs helplessly in the air, arms clutching her ribs, trying to squeeze out the words. ‘I’m not…’

‘Do not sully this moment further, Lord Nerevar,’ Gares snapped, ‘any more than is strictly necessary. I will not allow this sordid affair to end with a tedious exchange of philosophies.’

‘Do you see,’ LaCroix dragged in a breath. There was blood leaking from her nose and mouth, and one eye was swelled shut, in a palette of angry yellow and indigo.

‘What, my Lord,’ their tone was mocking, ‘pray, tell me what I should see.’

‘Do you see,’ she raised her hands in a posture of surrender, ‘any fucking rings?’

A pause.

A flash of lilac light.

A silver blade punched clean through Gares’ heart.

A gout of dark blood onto the floor between them.

‘She ain’t the Nerevarine, dickhead.’

The blade disappeared. A feral scream as it swung in a brutal arc, sending Gares’ head spinning into the ash of the shrine.

‘I am.’

Oxton hurried over to the assassin as Gares’ body crumpled, helping her carefully to her feet. ‘Amélie, you alright?’

LaCroix grimaced, nodded. ‘Nothing a potion won’t fix.’ She hissed as she put weight on her leg. ‘Perhaps two.’

‘Yeah well, get ‘em down you. Any fight you walk away from, right?’

LaCroix winced, produced a vial from her bag, removed the cork with her teeth, her free hand still tucked painfully against her ribs. 

‘That vision,’ Oxton said carefully, ‘it was real, wasn’t it.’

LaCroix winced at the thief, drew deeply from the potion. She made no attempt to contradict her.

‘I’m sorry,’ the thief gave a crooked smile.

LaCroix propped herself upright against a broad pillar, feeling the potion begin do its work, becoming grimly aware it was nowhere near enough. ‘Moi aussi.’

Oxton paused a moment beside Gares’ body, the golden light she’d seen on the last dead cultist materialising in hairline cracks across the torso.

‘Y’know, it’s weird,’ she observed, ‘but there’s something almost pretty about-’

A grip like steel as Gares’ hand latched around her arm, angry black pustules sprouting immediately across her skin. From the ash of the shrine, as it burst into blinding golden light, the severed head of Dagoth Gares spoke.

‘Even as my Master wills, Nerevarine,’ it growled, ‘you shall come to him, _in_ his flesh, and _of_ his flesh.’

Oxton screamed in agony as Gares vanished from the mortal plane. She looked down at her arm, trembling with shock, the skin twisting in disturbing shapes, and utterly numb where it wasn’t making her delirious with pain.

LaCroix caught her as she fell, cursing as they landed on the hard cavern floor. She caught a glimpse of Oxton’s arm, and cursed again, her breathing heavy.

Another light, then. Something glowing.

The ring. The moon-and-star. Lighting the chamber like a lantern. LaCroix shielded her eyes as the light flashed in the darkness.

As she blinked, she saw, for an instant, a figure standing tall, clad in blue-green robes, outlined by the smoke of the shrine, achingly beautiful and utterly impassive.

Hope filled her heart for an instant as she laid a hand on Oxton’s arm.

The marks were still there. Less livid, maybe. More skin than lesions, maybe. But still there.

LaCroix held back tears, held Oxton’s body tightly in her arms. The thief’s breathing was ragged. The light from the ring dimmed. She rocked her companion back and forth there, on the cavern floor, hundreds of feet below the ground. LaCroix leant her ear against Oxton’s back, felt her heartbeat, irregular and weak and fluttering like a bird’s.

Good enough.

She pulled a tiny jar from an inner pocket. Emergencies only. She glanced at the young woman, clinging to consciousness in her arms.

‘After this, you had better fucking live.’

She shot the potion in one huge gulp, supressing a wretched growl as its magic set her nerves on fire. With a guttural yell, she pushed them both to their feet, ignoring the screeching pain down her leg, set her sword arm under Oxton’s shoulders, and pushed them both, step by gruelling step, back toward daylight.

* * *

Milo reached the cave entrance at a dead sprint, their heavy boots kicking up marsh water as they ran.

‘This one head the screams?’ The fur on Ana-Amari’s tail stood on end.

‘Heard them in fucking Mournhold. Should I wake the guards?’

Ana-Amari’s lip curled. ‘Much good would they do us. Stay here, I am going down.’

‘Alone?’ The question was an accusation.

‘This one has better ideas?’

‘Yes! Literally anything! We don’t know what happened, we don’t know what’s down there-’

‘_The kitten is down there!_’ Ana-Amari hissed. ‘And I,’ she blinked slowly. ‘I am tired of being the one who gets to live.’

Milo’s heart ached. ‘Ana…’

The old thief placed a paw on the healer’s shoulder. ‘Some choices are no choice at all, young one.’

Milo’s shoulders sagged. ‘Just…’ The words eluded them. ‘There’s nothing I can do to stop you, is there.’

Ana-Amari shook her head. ‘It has been too long already. It is now or it is never.’

They nodded, chewed their lip. ‘I’ll be here when you get back.’

Ana-Amari gave them a tight smile, laid a paw on the door and pushed it open. The sun was beginning to rise over the sea beyond it, so that when two figures barrelled into her, knocking her flat on the wet ground, she didn’t know whether to laugh or scream.

One look at the state of them shocked her into silence.

LaCroix reacted first, her one functioning eye squinting in the daylight. ‘I’m… fine. Help… Lena.’

Ana-Amari shook herself, hardly believing what she was seeing. ‘You’re half fucking dead, spider,’ she brushed lightly at the assassin’s face, who flinched at the touch. ‘How the fuck did you…’

LaCroix rolled onto her side. ‘Make sure… I don’t swallow… my tongue.’ She passed out, breath escaping her lungs in a rough wheeze.

Milo pointed at the assassin. ‘Keep her head supported. Make sure her airways are clear. You got any healing?’

‘For cuts and bruises, sure.’

‘Do what you can.’ They dropped to their knees beside Oxton, rolled her onto her back, gasped through their teeth when they saw the arm. ‘Oh fuck. Oh Lena, oh fuck.’

Ana-Amari stared at them. ‘What, what is it.’

‘It’s corprus, Ana-Amari. Fucking _corprus_. It’s fucking real.’

The old Khajiit tilted her head in disbelief, her mind racing, her tongue searching for words as if articulating the absurdity might break its spell. She stared across at the vicious purple marks crawling up Oxton’s arm. The young thief’s eyes were not entirely closed, but only the whites showed. She was hanging on, just barely.

Milo stood. Clenched their jaw in thought. ‘Dunno if this is gunna work.’

‘This one knows better than Ana-Amari. Whatever it is, do it.’

Milo nodded, held both hands aloft, palms upward. They spoke a few clear sentences in Old Aldmeris, their voice echoing in the pale light of dawn, the grass below their feet blowing flat as the energy flowed into their hands. A pale blue light enveloped Oxton, lifting her slowly off the ground, just for a second.

As the light evaporated like dew, and the young thief dropped gently onto the earth, the whole coast stood still for a long second. Seabirds waking from slumber halooed across the bay, the tide lapping in broad hushes.

Oxton opened her eyes and screamed.

Milo fell backwards, scrambled across to where Oxton sat upright, took the thief’s hands in their own, inspected the wounds.

They were unchanged. The spell, it hadn’t worked.

Milo fought to keep their face neutral. ‘Lena? Lena, look at me. How are you feeling?’

‘Is she okay? Amélie, is she…’

‘She’ll be fine. Resting. Now, you’ve got a _lot_ of adrenaline in you, so just look at me. I’m right here. Deep breaths.’

Oxton felt like her eyes were vibrating. There was a pain like hellfire down her left arm. ‘That was, it was all real. I’m… I’m gunna…’

Milo closed their eyes. ‘No, mate. No. We don’t know... I’ve… I’ve got a plan.’

Ana-Amari’s eyes were wide. ‘A plan?’

‘It’s a fucking long shot, but... if we’re on the run anyway, there’s no better place for us.’

‘Where?’ Oxton could feel the burst of energy giving way to something much warmer, deeper. Pulling on her eyelids. Dragging her down.

‘There’s only one woman I ever met knew more than fairy tales about corprus. Nibani Maesa, wise woman of the northern ashlanders.’

‘Maesa?’ Oxton blinked heavily. ‘That a common name round here? Think I met a Maesa…’

‘You are delirious kitten, listen to friend Milo, take it easy.’

‘I’m… fine. Just… sleepy is all.’

‘Friend Milo, you can take us to this woman? Northern ashlanders live by the coast, yes? We can reach them by boat, yes?’

Milo stared off into the sea. ‘Maybe.’

‘_Maybe?_ What is-’

‘They’re fucking _nomads_, Ana! The ashlands don’t have signposts. We could find them in a day or we could be searching for weeks.’ She touched Lena’s arm. ‘And we ain’t got weeks.’

‘Mate,’ Oxton smiled beatifically, the anaesthetic effects of the spell washing over her in delightful waves. ‘It’s notta problem.’

Milo squeezed their eyes shut, tears coursing their cheeks. ‘Of course not, mate. You’re gunna be just fine.’

‘Nah, nah. I’ve gotta map.’

‘You what?’

‘A map! To the ashlanders.’

Milo’s heart sank, and they exhaled loudly. ‘Almsivi guide our steps.’ They clenched their jaw. ‘Right you are, mate, we’ll use your map.’

Oxton leaned slowly onto her side, gritting her teeth through a thunderclap of pain as she fetched her pack from under her. Withdrew a square of parchment, miraculously intact. Handed it to the priest. ‘There ya go. Ashlands. Ers. Anslanners. Them lot.’

Milo’s mouth hung open. Ana-Amari craned her neck. ‘What is it, friend Milo.’ Her voice was tight with hope.

‘It’s… it’s a map, Ana-Amari.’ They laughed, frowning in confusion. ‘They’ll be right here,’ they tapped the parchment, ‘until winter comes.’ They did a quick calculation, a slight, joyful shake of their head. ‘We can get there in two days, tops.’

‘That enough?’ Ana-Amari’s eyes were fixed on her den-kitten.

‘Gives us a fighting chance. Come on.’ They picked themselves up. ‘You take Lena, I’ll handle the big girl. Gotta get moving sharpish, while the weather holds.’

‘Oi!’ Oxton protested as her den-mother propped her upright, the young thief’s left arm dangling like a dead weight. ‘I’m big.’

Ana-Amari leant her head against Oxton’s temple. Kissed her deep among her muss of hair as Oxton gently protested, the smell of sweat and blood filling the old Khajiit’s sensitive nose. She didn’t care.

Milo deadlifted LaCroix into their arms, headed back toward the village in steady, heavy steps. They’d have to stop a couple of times before they made it back to the pier. They held the detailed drawing on the map in their mind, dedicating it to memory.

‘Mate, not that I ain’t grateful, but where the fuck did you get a _current_ map to the northern ashlanders?’

Oxton blinked slowly. ‘Won it offa bloke downa pub.’ She giggled. ‘I’m goodat cards.’

Milo and Ana-Amari shared a look. ‘I was having a nice quiet time as outlaw clergy til you lot rocked up, y’know.’

Oxton made an expression that might have been a wink. Then her eyes opened wide as a burst of pain shocked her into alertness, drew a yelp from her throat. The moon-and-star glowed white like a sword in a smithy. As it dimmed, the blotches on her arms grew almost imperceptibly deeper.

Ana-Amari looked askance at the priest. ‘This ring, it keeps the wearer safe?’

Milo’s breath was heavy. ‘Sure fucking hope so.’

Oxton’s knees gave out, almost pulling Ana-Amari to the ground. The old Khajiit pushed breath out in a hiss as she hoisted the young thief over her shoulder. She tried not to think too hard about how light she suddenly felt.

If anyone in the village had made note of the commotion by the old caves, they knew better than to get involved. Perhaps Milo only imagined the eyes behind the cracks in the shutters, a side-effect of their finely honed sense of vulnerability.

They laid Oxton and LaCroix as delicately as they could into the body of the little boat, like precious contraband, and ran to fetch what blankets and supplies could be spared from the rickety hideout, leaving a small coinpurse for the next occupants.

Made a prayer to whoever was listening.

When they returned, Ana-Amari was untying the ropes from the pier, throwing them carefully aboard. In minutes, the sails were down, and the boat was cutting its way through the thick, dark water of the Bitter Coast.

The sun peeked its brow over the horizon, the twin moons still visible in the twilight, casting pale yellow light over Vvardenfell. A small ship with a skeleton crew made its escape from Gnaar Mok, headed north.

In the arms of her den-mother, breath like a whisper, the Nerevarine dreamed of the two women who had carried her free from Ilunibi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Morrowind fans: yep, in this timeline there's no Corprusarium, no Divayth Fyr, none of that chunk of the questline (which does explore some really interesting questions about whether the PC really *is* the Nerevarine, tbf). The story's gunna more or less follow the main quest, still, but there's gunna be some significant deviation from canon from here on out, I think.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading, and, as always, I'm really interested to hear your thoughts,  
Tx


	10. Homecoming

Tholer Saryoni woke to the sound of a heavy, wet _thump_ just inches from her face. She blinked her lids open, the smell of warm blood in her nostrils. The sun was far below the horizon, and she shielded her eyes from the light of the campfire’s last embers.

A full-grown cliff racer, tongue hanging limp, an arrow clean through its throat.

‘Remember how to prepare one of these?’ A voice from the darkness.

‘Addut-Lamanu?’

‘Nope, Archmagister Gothren of the Telvanni. Just passing through.’

‘B’_Vek_, that’s no way to wake an old lady.’ She flopped back down onto her travel-mat, tried to ignore the dull, stiff pain at the base of her spine.

‘Here, don’t be going back to sleep, petal, that bird won’t pluck itself.’

She leaned her head up, peered at the silhouette poking at the fire, drawing small licks of flame about the new kindling. ‘What, now?’

‘You can wait for Azura to fill your tummy if you like.’

Saryoni groaned as she raised herself to a seat, tucking her pillow under her haunches. ‘You know, you have an awfully unorthodox relationship to Temple doctrine.’

Addut-Lamanu threw a grin over her shoulder. ‘Maybe. Don’t tell the archcanon.’

‘Droll.’ She glanced sadly at what would soon become the main course. ‘You know, I’m _supposed_ to be vegetarian.’

She nodded at the carcass. ‘Well, he won’t mind. Besides,’ she slumped her haversack onto the ground, fished out a full pouch of berries and herbs, ‘once it’s had half an hour frying in these cheeky bastards, you’ll never want cabbage again.’ She pulled some more gear out of her travel pack, started running a grindstone along a short, thick cleaver.

Saryoni drew the racer onto her lap with a sigh. It’d been a hefty critter in life. How these things got by on the element of surprise was one of the island’s great mysteries. She placed one hand on the racer’s head, still warm to the touch, took a firm grip on the feathers below the dorsal fin, and got to work.

Minutes passed as they worked in peaceful silence. Saryoni glanced up at the stars. It was a clear night, not a breath of wind, and she reflected on how long it had been since she could see not just the Atronach constellation, its broad shoulders rising over the peaks of Red Mountain, but every grain, every speckle of cosmic dust surrounding it. The sky glowing like a great wave breaking on the shore of some wine-dark sea. The twin moons weaving their perpetual slow-dance. The only sound the fire crackling, the regular chime of stone on steel.

Saryoni broke the silence. ‘I should thank you, Addut-Lamanu-’

‘Don’t,’ she said, waving dismissively with the grindstone. ‘And we ain’t in chapel, call me Addy, everyone else does.’

Saryoni smiled. ‘_Addy_? Suits you. Very…’

Addy raised a brow. ‘Settled?’ She smiled as she said it, but Saryoni felt a certain rawness, some bite that her rough treatment of the grindstone did little to allay.

She let it slide. If there was a conversation to be had, she trusted her friend to pursue it. ‘If you like,’ she said, gently drawing out another small handful of feathers, letting them fall in a pile at her feet. ‘I’m just grateful, that’s all. I materialised out of the aether after decades and here you are, dropping everything, guiding my steps…’

‘...just seeing you don’t starve to death…’

‘...we’ve yet to see if this fellow’s edible,’ she smiled wryly.

‘He will be.’

‘’He’?’

‘Aye, markings on the crest, look.’ Saryoni flipped the bird over. Feathers soft as down and deep crimson, even in the firelight. ‘Real city slicker now, ey?’ Addut-Lamanu continued. ‘When was the last time you even saw a racer with its beak still on?’

‘Before colonization,’ they said in unison, Saryoni giving a chuckle, Addut-Lamanu raising her eyebrows in satisfaction.

‘Well, thank you anyway,’ Saryoni continued.

She hummed, holding the cleaver to the flame for inspection. The sound of feathers ripping like old cloth. Addut-Lamanu paused, exhaled. ‘You thought about what you’ll say to her?’

‘My mother? Hm.’ Saryoni brushed a few downy feathers off her cloak. ‘Just thinking aloud, here…’

‘Proceed.’

Saryoni tried to read her expression, but her companion’s eyes were fixed on her task, and the fire cast too many dancing shadows. ‘Well,’ she placed a hand on her brow, ‘she knows I wouldn’t come to her if it wasn’t an emergency, but she also probably knows…’ She searched for the words.

Addut-Lamanu looked up. ‘You wouldn’t come to her if you weren’t desperate.’

She gave a weak smile. ‘Sounds rather... _transactional_, when you put it like that.’

‘Call them as I see them.’ She put the grindstone away and started chopping herbs. ‘That bird’s still awful hairy, petal.’

‘Ah, apologies,’ Saryoni chuckled, taking a small blade from her pack, and drawing it along the downy fluff, which came away like dust. 

The scent of Addut-Lamanu’s herbs reached her senses. Fresh from the earth of her home. Her head swam as memories a lifetime old rushed into her bones, her nerves, her muscles. She exhaled, vocally, watching the smoke rise from the fire. She placed her blade sideways across her lap. 

‘Do you think she’ll hear me out?’ She directed the question away from her old friend, as if posing it to the hills. Her throat felt dry as she squeezed out the words. She’d held court with spymasters, councillors, dukes, a _living god_… but this? Tholer Saryoni, archcanon of the Tribunal Temple, felt an icy fist close around her heart.

Addut-Lamanu sighed as she carefully tipped the herbs into the pot, placing the chopping block at her feet. ‘Who are you,’ she stated.

‘Oh, _Addy_,’ she started, running the back of her hand across her eye.

‘No, seriously, love. Say it.’

Saryoni drew herself upright, head over her shoulders, shoulders over her core. Long, deep breath. ‘I am Tholer Saryoni, Archcanon of the Tribunal Temple.’

‘Aye, and who’s she.’

‘Nibani Maesa, Wise Woman of the Urshilaku.’

‘Correct. Look,’ she leaned forward, elbows on her knees, as if sharing something the wilderness shouldn’t know. ‘You want a chat with your mam? Don’t know. You haven’t come up in conversation on the regular. But she’s more than your mam, and you’re more than her lass. And if what you reckon’s even halfway true - Dagoths and Nerevars and all that - both of you have work to do, roles to play. Can’t promise a tearful reunion or owt, but if all’s you’re worried about is being heard? She will, Tholer. She has to.’

Saryoni’s heart was heavy. ‘Of course. This is a professional visit, is it not.’

‘Isn’t it not?’ Addut-Lamanu gave a half-smile, focusing on culinary matters once more.

‘Pffft.’ Saryoni waved her away. ‘Gods beneath us. I suppose you’re right. Work first, and…’ she sighed at the stars. ‘Whatever else happens, happens.’

Addut-Lamanu was squeezing the oily berries into the pot, a fine cloth wrapped around her hands. ‘Tough at the top, eh?’

‘Oh,’ she placed the back of her hand on her forehead, ‘the trials, Addy. How I suffer.’

‘I’ll do it.’

She barked a laugh. ‘You’ll do what?’

‘Archcanonning. It don’t look so tough.’

Saryoni hummed thoughtfully. ‘I have had other offers, it’s true. There’s a cottage by the sea with my name on it, apparently.’

‘Well, ain’t that a win-win. I’ll take your pointy hat, teach them fetchers in the Fane what’s what, you go fishing. Them Ordinators need a good clout round the lughole for starters.’

Saryoni shaved the last of the downy feathers off the racer’s carcass, held it up by the feet, admiring her handiwork. ‘Very well. New blood in the upper echelons, and I shall begin anew, living off the fruit of the land, by the sweat of my brow.’

Addut-Lamanu laughed, not entirely to herself. ‘Gods help you, love.’ The pan sizzled on its stand above the fire. ‘Give us that bird now, it’s suffered enough.’

The old priest worked swiftly, with practiced precision, separating the gizzards from the cuts, and soon had the meat stewing merrily over the fire.

‘Listen, pet,’ she said, inspecting her feet for a moment, before looking Saryoni in the eye. ‘I know I’ve been up and down since you got here, and that ain’t fair on you.’

Saryoni tilted her head a little. ‘Oh. Well, I appreciate the thought, but it’s not-’

‘No, no, just give us a moment here.’ She settled herself. ‘I thought you were gone for good. Made peace with that. Seeing you… it was like a bit of me came back to life, and… that’s its own kind of painful, eh? I suppose...’

Saryoni gave her space. Even when they were young, Addut-Lamanu never spoke her mind so freely. It was like watching a young bird in flight, all elbows, all uncertainty.

Addut-Lamanu looked up at the constellations, fixed in their cycles, always changing, always the same. ‘I suppose I never reckoned with how you moved on, made a life that gave you _this_ kind of freedom, to say _I’m off_ and the world to say _how long?_’

Saryoni nodded thoughtfully. Give her words time to simmer. ‘So,’ she said, carefully, ‘what you’re saying...’

Addut-Lamanu raised an eyebrow.

‘...is you _don’t_ want to be Archcanon.’

Something dawned across Addut-Lamanu’s face. ‘Oh, you cheeky wee…’ She threw the oily rag at Saryoni’s face.

She squealed. ‘I am the _Archcanon_ of the _Tribunal Temple_! This is _treason_!’

‘You’re lucky it ain’t _martyrdom_, you bloody s’wit! Here’s me baring me ruddy soul...’

‘You were! You were, and I’m sorry, I appreciate where you’re coming from, and I do _so_ apologise for imposing on you here. It’s…’ she handed back the cloth, ‘it was unfair of _me_.’

‘Och…’ Addut-Lamanu tucked the cloth away, stirred the pot a little, inhaled the aroma, hot and sweet. ‘I don’t mean this harsh, Tholer, but… you’re part of that other world now. A big part. And I could pretend like we’re back in the old days, when so many roads were open to us…’ She looked Saryoni in the eye, not unkindly, her eyes soft, ‘...but we’ve got more endings than beginnings ahead of us now. I do, anyway.’

Tholer Saryoni held her gaze for a long second, then looked down at the ground in front of her. The racer had spilt a little blood, turning the ground soft and purple, like a bruised lip.

‘Well,’ she started, her mouth pulled into a tight smile. ‘I’m glad I got to meet you again, before the roads all end. Sounds like you’ve made something very good here, in Maar Gan.’

Addut-Lamanu jutted her jaw and nodded. ‘Aye. Put down real roots. Seen ‘em grow. Can’t ask for much more than that.’ She smiled then, the tightness gone from her shoulders. ‘Here, stew’s gunna be a world-beater, I reckon. Give us your bowl.’

‘Certainly smells that way,’ Saryoni passed her bowl over, a terracotta piece she’d carried with her all the way from the Fane.

‘Well, lah-dee-dah,’ she grinned, turning it over in her hands, ‘and me leaving me good crockery at home.’

‘You aren’t going to get tired of teasing me, are you.’

‘No time soon.’ She doled out steaming portions of the diced meat, the sauce thick and dripping. ‘How many folk can give the archcanon a piece of their mind and get away with it?’

‘B’Vek,’ Saryoni declared, mouth quite full. ‘Feed me like this and you can say whatever you damn well please.’

‘I’ll remember that,’ Addut-Lamanu smiled through a mouthful of her own.

Hours later, the sun rose over a pair of travellers walking shoulder to shoulder through the ashlands, less than a day’s walk from the Urshilaku camp. Less than a day from home.

* * *

There was silence on the boat as dawn broke.

Mehra Milo was at the tiller, eyes ringed with the deep grey of sleepless nights, steering a course through the tiny islands speckling Vvardenfell’s coast. To the east, rising out of the gloaming, they’d spotted the ancient stronghold of Andsareth, a remnant of when the Dunmer had the enemies to demand such fortifications, and the allies to reinforce them. The crumbling outer walls seemed unreal, like a wild geological accident whose last foe was the slow, patient hand of time. For decades the ruins had passed between bandits, necromancers, and militias, for a season, maybe a year if the gods willed and the roofs held. Milo charted a wide berth past the stronghold of Andsareth.

LaCroix leaned over the bow, studying the waves, as if awaiting a reply.

Ana-Amari sat as she had since they’d embarked, cross-legged on the floor of the boat, her kitten’s head in her lap. Wrapped in as many blankets as they could carry, Oxton slept deeply and silently, held under by Milo’s spell. Her den-mother watched her chest rise, fall, rise, the occasional knit of her brow: pain? a dream? Ana-Amari had sung to her a few old songs, low and soft, from what she still remembered of her youth in Elsweyr, but stopped when her voice faltered. She brushed the young thief’s hair from her eyes.

Many miles to go.

* * *

Jobasha woke to the sound of heavy fists on the door of the shop.

Grabbing a cloak off the floor and hurriedly tying a belt round his waist, he tiptoed upstairs to the main shopfloor. The pounding continued, three firm beats every ten seconds or so. No voices yet. Ordinators were known for two things: brute force, and anonymity. As he passed the fireplace he picked up the poker, though his arm felt like wet linen. He uttered a quiet prayer in Ta’agra and cleared the sleep from his throat.

‘We are closed! Read the sign, please, and return when the festival is over.’

A pause.

‘But it _is_ Morndas?’ A booming nordic accent, which seemed to emanate from a point slightly above the doorframe. ‘Ana said to come and visit her friend, and here!’ A tap on the door where the notice hung. ‘It is her friend’s name!’

‘Friend Ana?’ Jobasha tried to remember the name of that nord she’d settled down with. ‘Is that-’

‘Reinhardt!! Yes, it is I. I have heard many tales of you!’

Jobasha glanced out a window. The sun was barely risen, and he didn’t especially want disgruntled neighbours grousing to the guards about an unwanted visitor. Particularly one with a voice like a rockslide and a vague relationship with discretion. Perhaps-

‘Jobasha!? Yes!? Jobasha the seller of rare books!? Have I, Reinhardt, agent of the Thieves’ Guild, knocked upon the door of the right Jo-’

The door swung open to reveal a diminutive khajiit in his dressing down with an iron poker and a face like thunder. ‘Yes,’ he smiled tightly. ‘Won’t you come in.’

The giant man’s face opened to a wide grin as he stepped inside, slamming the door behind him, though he didn’t appear to exert any great force upon it. ‘You are exactly as she described!’

Jobasha eyed him up as he tottered back toward the kitchen. ‘Yes? And how was that.’

Reinhardt indicated his host from head to toe. ‘Like this! _Bahh hahahah!!_ This shop is beautiful!! Look at this painting!!’

‘Yes, thank you. Reinhardt?’

‘That is me!!’

Jobasha sighed through his nose. ‘It is very early. Would you mind...?’

‘Oh!! Oh. Apologies, friend Jobasha. I lost some of my hearing in the war.’

‘Ah, Jobasha is sorry to hear this. Which war?’

‘That’s right!’

Jobasha blinked. He pinched his arm. Awake, then. Hm. His mountainous guest smiled at him expectantly. ‘You are… looking for friend Ana-Amari,’ Jobasha thought aloud. ‘Well, I am afraid she is not here-’

‘This is fine! I shall await her return.’ He turned to the nearest bookshelf and began removing tomes, apparently at random.

‘No, you see… she… what is this one doing?’

He turned to him with a hearty laugh. ‘Surely friend Jobasha knows nothing passes time like a good book!!’

Jobasha breathed in for a count of five, hold for five, out for eight. ‘Jobasha is going to brew a pot of tea. Would his friend care to join him?’

‘A fine notion! Here.’ Reinhardt dropped a pack the size of Jobasha from his shoulders to the floor with a heavy thud, picked a brown paper bag from a side pocket. ‘Ana’s favourite. We shall drink in her honour.’

An aroma like ripened fruit and wildflowers met Jobasha’s senses. Judging by the thief’s outfit, it might have been the most valuable thing in his possession.

Minutes later, Jobasha returned with a steaming kettle in one hand, two mugs in the other. Reinhardt was quite asleep, slumped over in a chair in front of the empty fireplace and snoring extravagantly. He roused with a snort.

‘Ah! Good,’ he said, bleary-eyed. ‘I apologise. It is a long walk from Balmora, and I am not so young.’

Jobasha placed a paw on the lid of the kettle as he poured, steam rising with a faint hiss. ‘From _Balmora_? This one did not stop overnight in Pelagiad village?’

Reinhardt chuckled warmly. ‘When Ana-Amari says _be here_, I walk through _mountains_ if I must!’ He sipped his tea, exhaled loudly. ‘Although, today, she is _not_ here. Did you say where she went, friend Jobasha? I lost some of my hearing in the war.’

Jobasha felt his senses recover as he took a long draw from his own mug. ‘Jobasha did not. How much did friend Ana-Amari tell you in her letter?’

‘Almost nothing!’ he grinned conspiratorially. ‘We communicate in _code_. She says _come to Vivec!_ And the rest is… uh, well…’

Jobasha tilted his head in curiosity. The tea seemed to have warmed the huge man’s cheeks.

‘..._in any case!! _Perhaps you might let me know where she is headed, I should hate to be a burden on your hospitality.’

‘Jobasha is afraid, friend Reinhardt, he can only tell you they are in hiding, and that they were heading first for the village of Gnaar Mok.’

‘_Hiding!?_’ He was suddenly alert. ‘Has something happened? There are many guards and scuffles around the streets, but I assumed this is normal for Vivec.’

‘Not to this scale, no. But Ana and the others were fine when Jobasha saw them off at the docks, friend Reinhardt. Once out of the city, it is like hunting a mouse in a wheat field. And friend Ana is a very clever mouse.’

He beamed with pride. ‘Well said indeed, young sera. So,’ he slugged a cup of tea that hadn’t dropped far below boiling point, apparently unscathed. ‘I must be off, then. It is a long walk to Gnaar Mok, as they say.’

Jobasha stood, concerned. ‘Surely not. This one has just crossed half of Vvardenfell.’

Reinhardt protested, but his heart was not in it.

‘Besides,’ Jobasha continued, refilling his guest’s mug, ‘friend Ana would tan Jobasha’s hide if some ill befell you.’

He studied the mug, inhaled the drowsy scent of a warm autumn morning. ‘I should hate to cause you trouble,’ he suggested.

‘Exactly,’ Jobasha nodded. ‘Jobasha will fetch a blanket, and give friend Reinhardt all the latest news from Vivec.’

Jobasha was not, I regret to say, the most direct of storytellers, and his narrative took many tangents and asides for flavour, context, and editorial. The sun had quite cleared the horizon by the time he arrived at the present moment.

‘So you mean to say, there was an apparition, from the gods themselves!? And this apparition has roused the people to revolt!?’

‘Some, yes. Though Jobasha suspects an element of infiltration from the ordinators, the better to justify their reprisals.’

There was fire in the old nord’s eyes. ‘B-but this is _disgraceful!!_’ Flecks of tea hung from his great beard.

‘You have encountered guards previously, yes?’

‘Certainly! And gave as good as I got, by Stendarr!! But _this_…’

Jobasha sighed. ‘The Temple’s order is too important to leave to chance, friend Reinhardt.’

He rose to his feet in an avalanche of blankets and cloaks. ‘Then by Akatosh himself, I shall stay and _fight!!_’

‘It is not long past dawn, friend Reinhardt.’

‘Apologies. I shall stay and fight.’

‘Mm, that is most noble-’

‘I know!’

Jobasha held a paw aloft for calm. ‘_But _Jobasha suggests you take a quick rest before we make plans, yes? Certainly you can spare a minute or two?’

Reinhardt blinked a few times, hummed in thought. ‘I _do_ get drowsy after tea, at times.’

‘Well, Jobasha has a comfortable…’ he appraised the man’s stature. ‘Rug, downstairs. And blankets all the way from Elsweyr.’

‘Perhaps you are right. But please, wake me before too long. Though Reinhardt must sleep, justice does not!’

Jobasha frowned thoughtfully as he ushered his guest into the basement. ‘Forgive Jobasha, but friend Reinhardt is a thief, correct?’

‘A _just_ thief,’ he declared, fists at his hips.

Jobasha could hardly argue with that. ‘Well, _just_ rest for a while, and soon we shall have you on the barricades.’

‘Yes!! I shall do my Ana proud… by Mara, this rug is like the pelts of three bears! I shall…’

With that, he was asleep, and stillness filled the bookshop once more, the old thief’s breathing a low, contented drone.

Without a wasted moment, Jobasha gathered his walking shoes, his messenger bag, and a large hooded robe, left a scribbled note of instruction on the kitchen table, and jogged upstairs. Perhaps the huge thief’s arrival was an unexpected blessing, something to encourage those on the front line. Not enough to turn the tide, perhaps, but any good news in a storm.

As he passed the fireplace, he glanced down at the pack Reinhardt had dropped. Nudging it with a firm toe, Jobasha extrapolated that it was going nowhere fast. Then he noticed that what he had taken for a bedroll was, in fact, leather casing, wrapped around something hard and square at each side: a large lockbox, maybe? On closer inspection, a long metal handle jutted out beneath. Against his better judgement, he peeked underneath the casing. He took a small step backwards.

A warhammer.

Tempered steel, a handle as thick as Jobasha’s wrist and as long as he was tall, engraved with runes carved dense enough to tell a whole night’s worth of stories. Images flicked through his mind of the man asleep on his basement floor, wielding it high above a platoon of ordinators, a berserker’s yell piercing the fray.

He squeezed his eyes shut, shook himself. Fantasies. Dangerous. No time for tall tales for soft kitties.

Time to organise.

* * *

They made landfall shortly before sundown, on a beach not far from Khuul. LaCroix leapt out into the shallows, hauling the boat to shore under Milo’s direction. Ana-Amari helped Oxton into Milo’s arms, the old thief gingerly stretching her legs after almost a day sat in place. Milo lowered the young thief to LaCroix, sharing a silent look as they did so. Perhaps it was only the glow of sunset leaving a red tint around the assassin’s eyes. LaCroix laid Oxton down on the beach, still lost in sleep.

A middle-aged khajiit approached them from the direction of the village, hand raised in greeting. ‘Welcome, friends,’ he called, wearing a polite smile, but keeping well out of arm’s reach. ‘Our docks are just around the headland. But these ones made no attempt to hide their approach. This perplexes S’Virr. What can khajiit do for them?’

Ana-Amari stepped forward, still rubbing feeling into her legs. ‘Warm sands, friend S’Virr. I am Ana-Amari, daughter of Darbani, of Corinthe nation.’

He seemed to relax. ‘Warm sands,’ he smiled. ‘S’Virr, son of Jodiska, Senchal nation.’

Ana-Amari shrugged. ‘Nobody’s perfect.’

The khajiit chuckled warmly and wagged a finger. ‘S’Virr should throw you back into the ocean!’ Then he noticed LaCroix kneeling beside her companion, his smile evaporated. ‘A thousand apologies, is this one…’

‘Hanging on,’ Milo grimaced. ‘Did what we could, but it’s bad. Headed for the ashlander camp at dawn, see the wise woman.’

He raised his bushy eyebrows. ‘To see the wise woman, must be bad indeed.’

‘It is corprus,’ said LaCroix, not turning to face him, her tone flat.

The khajiit’s ears flattened. ‘S’Virr must have misheard. He is sure you said _corprus_, and yet your friend is among the living. S’Virr has never heard of a _mild case of corprus_.’

LaCroix rose to her feet, fixing him with a stare. ‘I saw it with my own eyes, and now you do likewise. You call me a liar?’

A small hubbub as the boatman protested, and Milo requested calm.

‘More peculiarity than S’Virr has seen in a dozen winters.’ He looked deeply apprehensive. ‘S’Virr will speak to the headman. If this one speaks true, your friend is not the only one in danger.’

Milo nodded gratefully. ‘That’s why we landed away from the village. We aren’t infected, so it’s probably not contagious, but no unnecessary risks.’

‘This one is a healer?’ S’Virr asked, to which Milo nodded. ‘S’Virr, ah, _salvaged_ some herbs from a shipwreck recently. He will gladly share them. Kindly do not enter the village until his return.’

‘This is more than we could ask, friend S’Virr,’ Ana-Amari gave a small bow.

‘Do not thank S’Virr too soon,’ he said, grimly, stalking up the hill toward the village square.

As he left, Ana-Amari turned to her fellow travellers, pointed a thumb up the beach. ‘Ana-Amari doubts we shall have roofs over our heads tonight. She will gather driftwood for fire.’ Milo nodded as she left, hands deep in her pockets, watching the dying sunlight set the waves aflame.

‘I do not see how herbs will help.’ LaCroix’s voice was low, bitter.

Milo took a seat in the sand beside Oxton. ‘Better than nothing.’

‘Is it.’ She squeezed the bridge of her nose. ‘Apologies. I am not accustomed to such… powerlessness.’

Milo wrapped an arm round her shoulders. ‘You get used to it, mate.’

Despite herself, LaCroix leaned into the embrace. After a long moment, she spoke. ‘No-one’s ever done that for me.’

‘What, hugged you?’ Milo chuckled. ‘B’Vek, that’s tragic.’

LaCroix hissed at them through her teeth, pushed a fist across her nose. ‘_No_.’ She nodded toward Oxton. ‘She saved my life. She knew the danger and risked her neck.’ A ragged sigh. ‘And look what happens.’

‘You did the same for her, though, right?’

‘Ugh, please, that is different.’

Milo screwed up her face. ‘You what? How, exactly.’

‘Because! I am…’ she threw up her hands.

‘A menace to society?’

‘Yes! My body is a weapon! And hers is... She should have saved herself.’

Milo rubbed her back. ‘Yeah, well. I’m glad someone did. You can show her your appreciation once we’ve seen Nibani Maesa, right?’

LaCroix blinked slowly, exhaled. ‘Ouais.’ She touched the blanket covering the thief’s arm, exposing the skin to the light. The deep, purplish scars were less fresh, less livid, but where they had barely reached halfway up her forearm the previous night, they now touched her elbow. The ring glowed, dim but steady.

LaCroix pointed this out to Milo, who studied it closely. ‘Never found much in the apographa about the ring, beyond the design, and even that was way off. Maybe glowing’s normal.’ They shrugged, placed the back of a hand close to Oxton’s forehead, checked her skin. ‘No fever, looks like.’

‘What does that mean.’

‘Means she’s a solid chance of making it to the ashlanders. Bigger question is what happens after that.’

LaCroix ran a hand through Oxton’s mop of hair. Something passed across the young thief’s face, like a cloud across the sun. ‘Do you think she can hear us?’

Milo shrugged again. ‘Sure.’

LaCroix stroked her cheek. Tilted her head to look at the Nerevarine, face to face, eye to closed eye.

‘If you don’t make it,’ she whispered, ‘I’m going to fucking kill you.’

Milo scratched the back of their head. ‘Gunna see how Ana’s doing with that firewood.’

They looked back as they left. LaCroix was watching over her companion, brushing her hair in slow, steady sweeps.

* * *

Water dripping, echoing down a long corridor. Wind in a low howl.

So dark she can hear her footsteps better than she can see them.

There is a speck of light. All else is dark.

What else to do but walk toward it.

Step. Step. Step. She would hold her hands out before her, but why? Perhaps she already is.

Wind echoing in a low howl.

Is the light closer? Water dripping, from every angle.

Step. Step. She is tired. Very tired. How did she get here? Hard to remember. Hurts to remember.

Wind. Light. Water. Step.

The light is much closer now. Is she moving toward it, or it to her? No matter. Not much further.

Step. Step.

St-

Lena Oxton, speaks a voice. In the dank cave, it makes no echo. The wind, in a low howl.

Stop. She does not know if she thinks it or hears it. She stops.

Why do you walk from me? speaks a voice. There is, unmistakably, no smile in it.

‘The light,’ she says. She has a voice.

What is the light.

‘I… I don’t know,’ Lena Oxton says. She is Lena Oxton.

Who am I.

Lena Oxton turns. There is a woman behind her. She is bathed in a blue-green light, or a blue-green light emanates from her.

‘I know you. We met.’

That is correct. You have something of mine.

Lena Oxton looks at her hand. She can see her hand. She wears a beautiful ring. There are terrible scars on her arm. She cannot feel her arm.

‘I was… in a cave. I am in a cave.’

Correct. On both counts, speaks the woman, though her face is as still as rock. The woman is very beautiful.

‘You’re very beautiful,’ says Lena Oxton.

I am sure you say that to all the Elder Gods.

‘Just the beautiful ones.’

The woman laughs in a delighted trill, though her face is as still as rock. ‘Young Nerevarines are always such _fun_.’

Lena Oxton searches her mind for a name. One her friend had mentioned. Her friend Milo.

‘You’re Lady Azura.’

Good, speaks the voice. I did not choose a complete fool.

‘Lady Azura,’ says Lena Oxton, and she feels her heart tremble. ‘Why me?’

The woman is surprised, though her face is still.

You question my motives?

‘Yes. I mean, no. But, why not Milo, or an ashlander? This… the emperor sent me, not the Dunmer, not the Velothi.’

My servant Milo has told you the history, states the voice. I have chosen my people, over and over, and the Great Houses destroy them, the Temple destroys them, the Empire destroys them. Thousands of years, dozens of my people. Time and time again.

The blue-green light blossoms from the woman, the cavern alights, stretching away for miles into the darkness.

Oxton realised they are not, they have not been, alone.

Dozens of shades, dozens of blank-eyed ghosts, everywhere the light touches, staring directly at her through the blue-green dimness of the cave.

No more, speaks the voice. 

If they will not hear my people, speaks the voice, they will hear their own. There is, unmistakably, fury in the voice. The walls of the cave tremble.

‘Yes, Lady Azura,’ says Lena Oxton.

This is why, speaks the voice, when you meet the Urshilaku, you shall say

the dream is the door and the star is the key

Lena Oxton speaks it as she hears it, as she thinks it

_the dream is the door and the star is the key_

Now, speaks the voice, until we meet for the last time

_the dream is the door_

wake

‘...and the star is the key’

LaCroix shrieked as she fell backward onto the sand.

There was a soft thud as Milo dropped their driftwood, kicking up sand as they pounded across the beach. Ana-Amari turned from where she was building a fire, scurrying the short distance to the kitten’s side.

‘The dream is the door and the star… oh, you alright, mate? Didn’t see you there.’

LaCroix was pale as a ghost, her breath shallow, her jaw open. Milo dropped to their knees, placed a firm hand on her shoulders. ‘Lena, stay still,’ they said, firm, insistent, ‘you could be in shock.’

‘Shock?’ She looked down at her arm. It was covered from wrist to elbow in deep, vicious scars. ‘Oh.’

‘She was saying something,’ rasped LaCroix, eyes still wide. ‘Over and over. The dream is the door and the star…’

‘...is the key,’ Oxton finished. ‘I’m supposed to say that to the ashlanders.’

Ana-Amari looked to the priest. They shrugged, lowered Oxton flat onto her back. ‘How you feeling, sweetness?’

‘Bloody painful, honestly,’ she smiled. ‘Better than Amélie, by the looks of it,’ she chuckled, then cursed violently as a bolt of pain shot up her arm.

‘Easy, kitten,’ Ana-Amari soothed her. ‘Friend Milo has something for you to drink.’ She nodded to the herbs S’Virr had brought them.

‘Yeah, some of the villagers brought supplies. Others, pitchforks. Came out about even, I reckon.’

‘Fuck. Hope that Arenim lady didn’t twig I half-inched her silvers.’

Milo blinked at her.

‘We are in Khuul, kitten. This one has been asleep all day.’

‘Ahh,’ she nodded. ‘Never heard of it.’

‘Here,’ Milo leaned forward, holding a small wooden cup. ‘Dunno how you’re still breathing, let alone cracking wise, but I’m taking no risks this close to the camp.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Oxton nodded, taking the cup from her hand, ‘we’re going to see the Urshilaku.’

Milo froze. ‘What.’

‘You said that’s where we’re going, right? Back in Gnaar Mok?’ She raised the cup to her lips.

Milo stopped her. ‘I said we were going to see the _ashlanders_. How do you know that word?’

‘I…’ Oxton’s brow furrowed. She swallowed hard as images of a cave echoed through her mind, as the truth dawned, as she caught Milo’s eye. ‘Azura told me.’

Milo placed a hand across their mouth as several emotions crossed their face in unison. They nodded, took a deep breath, shook their head. ‘Mate, either we’re gunna have stories to last a lifetime, or not enough lifetime to tell ‘em. Anyway,’ they sighed a laugh, glanced out at the deep blue sea, the deep blue sky, ‘it’s getting late, and we all need what rest we can get. You can drink that now, pal, gunna make you feel delicious.’

‘Thanks, Milo.’ She knocked it back. ‘See you in the morning, yeah?’

‘Better believe it.’

LaCroix had just about gathered herself, inching over to where the young thief lay. As Oxton settled down in her blankets, the assassin laid a gentle kiss on her forehead.

Oxton grinned, feeling quite delicious. ‘Hel-lo. What’s that for?’

LaCroix shrugged. ‘Thank you.’

‘Any time,’ she yawned, ‘sweet cheeks.’ Her eyes closed. She snored gently.

The sound of the waves rolling up the beach. Distant voices from the village.

Milo stood and strolled toward the shoreline, letting the cold water wash over their feet, holding their hands behind their head as they stared out into the night.

As she turned back to her work on the campfire, Ana-Amari winked her good eye at the assassin, getting a stern glare in return. ‘Kids,’ the den-mother purred.

LaCroix tilted her head toward the stars, beginning to materialise through the encroaching darkness, and tried to remember the last time she’d felt so small. The twin moons swam silently through the night.

* * *

‘You ready?’

Tholer Saryoni looked at her friend, gave a weak smile. ‘Let’s say yes.’

‘Fair enough,’ Addut-Lamanu shrugged.

From the peak of an ash dune, a vantage point over the whole camp. A few dozen yurts gathered around a large fire pit, close to where the Bani-Dad river washed into the sea. Around them, huge tanned hides were pitched in a broad semi-circle, sheltering the camp from ash storms to the south. For a half-mile or so inland, small, wild cultivations of wickwheat, saltrice and marshmerrow, and scattered herds of shalks, grazing or sleeping, their dark carapaces gleaming in the twilight.

Saryoni snapped out of her reverie to a careful hand on her back.

‘How’s it feel, petal?’

Saryoni tried to force her breathing to settle. She shook her head. ‘Unreal,’ she said.

‘We can wait a moment. They ain’t going anywhere,’ Addut-Lamanu smiled.

The archcanon could see a few of the younger folk working on a bonfire. She tried to fetch the dates of feast days from her memory, and failed. She ruled out St Llothis, at any rate. She began to walk down the dunes.

‘What’s the occasion, do you know?’

Addut-Lamanu hummed. ‘Kids love a good fire? Maybe they heard you were coming home.’

Saryoni felt a nervous laugh escape her. ‘Perhaps. Shall we? Is there someone you usually introduce yourself to?’

She nodded. ‘Aye, first one we pass who don’t look too busy. You remember this stuff, pet, it ain’t been that long.’

‘Certainly, but things change, traditions change.’

Addut-Lamanu grinned. ‘In the Hlaalu council chambers, maybe. Round here?’ She waggled a hand to say _not so much_.

‘I see. Well, you’re a more familiar face than I am, care to do the honours?’

She pinched the ends of her cloak and curtseyed. ‘_Announcing her bountiful divinity_,’ she trilled, in tones fit for the Duke’s court. ‘_hierarch of the simple unspoilt peasantry, so pure butter melteth not in her mouth, she whose noble brow hath never harboured impure thoughts, beside that one time with Nervana Verelas in the ordinator barracks-_’

Saryoni gasped, _scandalised_. ‘Scurrilous untruths! Our union was but a reflection of Vivec’s love for their people!’ She sneered down her nose.

‘Aye, and they’re a randy old bastard, from what I’ve heard.’

The archcanon gave her friend a playful slap on the arm. ‘Can’t believe I’m associating with this heretic.’

Addut-Lamanu grinned widely. ‘I’ve missed you, you know.’

‘You too, Addy. Sorry it took so long.’

‘S’fine. Just do a statue of me back in the big smoke.’

‘I shall decree it.’

A young shalkherd glanced over at two women walking toward the camp. She raised a hand and waved them over. Addut-Lamanu took the lead, raising her tattooed arm by way of greeting.

‘Back a week early, Addut-Lamanu,’ she said, quite flatly. Saryoni was taken aback by an accent she hadn’t heard in decades in the holy city, one that felt familiar as rainfall. She became suddenly conscious of her own voice, the journey it had taken to be heard by diplomats and nobles, so far from its roots. She was oddly glad of the excuse to speak only when called upon.

‘Special occasion. Hainab, isn’t it? Maeli’s lass?’

‘S’right,’ she nodded. ‘Special occasion, it is.’ Saryoni felt distinctly inconvenient, like a lost lamb returned to a cowherd.

‘We have reason to speak with the Wise Woman, Hainab.’

A crack in the young woman’s expression, her eyebrows furrowing for half a moment. She paused. ‘She’s very busy today, Addut-Lamanu, but you are our hearthfriend, and I will advocate on your behalf. Of what would you speak?’

Saryoni noted the herder’s switch to formality, glanced at her friend. If Addut-Lamanu felt pushed to arm’s length, she disguised it admirably. ‘Well,’ she began, ‘I have brought my friend through the ashlands to, uh, receive her counsel. This is Tholer-’

‘-Maesa,’ the archcanon interjected. ‘Tholer Maesa.’

The shalkherd looked her in the eye, still giving nothing away. She studied her for a long second, then nodded. ‘You may come with me to the camp, but you will wait outside the yurt until given permission.’

‘Of course,’ the archcanon bowed her head in deference, and followed.

The bonfire sent gulps of smoke into the evening as they reached the Wise Woman’s yurt. It was just as Saryoni remembered: some new patchwork around the edges, a fresh tapestry above the door, but without a doubt the same yurt she’d stormed out of all those years ago. Her heart thrummed in her chest, a wild and frightened beast.

Hainab ducked under the cloth covering the door, and Saryoni turned away, not allowing herself a glance beyond it. Addut-Lamanu had already sparked up a conversation with some of the young hunters, hearing stories of their journeys through the northern wilderness. She looked utterly at home. The elders of the camp kept their distance, as Saryoni had expected.

After an agonising minute, the herder returned, the solemn look she’d given her still covering her face. ‘You may enter,’ she said. Saryoni took a deep breath, allowed Addut-Lamanu to lead her inside. 

The yurt was larger than most in the camp, high enough to stand with one’s arms raised, broad enough for several people to speak together, eat together. Around the walls, woven images of the myths - _histories_, said a voice in her mind - she’d learned as a child. Memories rushed in of the years she’d spent playing, or, more often, listening around that small hearth in the middle of the tent. A figure stood opposite them, back turned, dressed in simple robes, before a broad wooden table, a luxury in the unforested wilds. She set down a finely wrought mortar and pestle, and the Wise Woman of the Urshilaku turned to greet them.

Saryoni had never seen her before in her life.

‘Under sun and sky, we greet you warmly, Addut-Lamanu,’ the Wise Woman, who couldn’t have been older than fifty, gripped her by the forearm, ‘and you, Tholer Maesa,’ she repeated the gesture, a smile of genuine kindness on her face. ‘We thank you for joining us at this time, however unexpected your arrival.’

Saryoni looked to her friend, who seemed no less perturbed. ‘Thank you for your kindness, Kurapli. Ehm…’ She was lost for words.

The woman seemed to note the confusion. ‘You are here for the burial, are you not? We’re delighted to welcome our hearthfriends, of course.’

Saryoni’s mouth was dry. ‘The… burial?’

Wise Woman Kurapli blinked in confusion, and the smile fell from her face, and Saryoni felt the room begin to spin. ‘When I heard you had come,’ the woman began, ‘I assumed… You… you have not heard the news.’

_No_, said a loud voice in Saryoni’s mind. _No, no_.

Addut-Lamanu placed her arms around Saryoni’s shoulders. ‘Kurapli,’ she said, low and steady, ‘where is Nibani Maesa?’

Kurapli took a step towards them, took Saryoni’s hands in her own, her breath shallow. ‘I’m… gods above and below, I’m so sorry, Tholer.’

Saryoni closed her eyes and prayed in vain for the tears not to come, for awakening from this awful dream. There was a ringing in her ears, and she barely noticed herself shrugging off Addut-Lamanu’s embrace, or the new Wise Woman - how strange, a new Wise Woman, young enough to be her great-granddaughter - exchanging soft, urgent words with her friend. The next thing she felt were her feet, wet in the shallows of the Sea of Ghosts, her cheeks cold as the wind met her tears, nothing ahead of her but water and sky and darkness.

She felt a scream leave her lips as she doubled over, a feral cry loud enough to wake the dead.

Smoke rose high above the Urshilaku camp. A woman hurried from the largest tent toward the beach, carrying a cup of something hot, a blanket, and no words, no words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! I know fic is all about that Angst but I know this is kind of a heavy note to end on, even one that (I hope) was foreshadowed? Whatever the case, please look after yourselves! You deserve good fic *and* good vibes, and I invite you to do some self-indulgent fun stuff just now. That is my official authorial intent at this juncture.
> 
> Anyhow, thank you for reading, and see you soon!  
Tx


	11. Brink

Tholer Saryoni’s feet had been cold for hours.

She sat cross-legged on the beach by the Urshilaku camp, staring out at the sea. 

The tide breathed in, the tide breathed out.

The sun rose, as it tended to.

She looked at her hands, resting on her knees. Wrinkles on her knuckles. Deep lines on her palms.

The sun sent its tentative light across the coast, igniting the low white clouds on the horizon, slowly turning the water from midnight blue to lilac to a livid, fiery red, streaking from the edge of the world to Saryoni’s feet.

She lowered her eyes, blinking away the blotches.

The northernmost point of the known world. Solstheim and Skyrim to the west, the Morrowind mainland to the east, but out there, beyond the last few scattered islands?

If she took a boat, found the north star, and followed it beyond the horizon?

She looked at the sea.

She looked at the sea for a long time.

She looked at the small fire Addut-Lamanu had made the previous night, expiring in fine grey wisps. She looked at the bowl of rice she’d brought, long since congealed in the night air. She lifted it to her nose.

She was hungry, she decided, and here was food. She tested a spoonful. Its warmth was long gone, but the earthy, smokey spices had lingered. She looked at Addut-Lamanu, asleep on a bedroll in the sand by the fire.

Saryoni was wearing a blanket Addut-Lamanu had brought her. She took it off her shoulders and draped it across her friend.

The sound of footsteps behind her, unhurried, scrunching across the sand. She felt hungry, and took another mouthful. It tasted good.

Wise Woman Kurapli, holding her robes around herself against the cool morning air. Saryoni was struck, once more, by her youth: surely her mother had been training a successor for far longer? Perhaps, a small inner voice suggested, she’d believed that Saryoni might still change her mind. A knot tied itself tight as a fist in her gut.

‘Good morning, Tholer,’ the young woman said.

Saryoni considered this for a second, looking out at the sea, turned into a shining and glittering thing by the dawn. Kurapli was right. It was good.

‘Good morning, Wise Woman Kurapli.’ She gave a small bow.

She gave a thin smile. ‘You’re hearthfriend, Tholer, and my elder, as far as I’m concerned. No formalities, please.’

Saryoni nodded. The wash of the shore. Birdsong in the distance. ‘This rice is excellent,’ she said.

Kurapli blinked at her, gave an amused grin. The absurdity dawned on Saryoni, who broke into a giggle, then a full laugh, then shuddering sobs, spilling out of her in waves. Kurapli put her hands on Saryoni’s shoulders, who leaned forward into the embrace, fighting to control her breathing.

Addut-Lamanu roused groggily from sleep, took a moment to appraise the situation. ‘Hey, I’m the only one allowed to upset Tholer.’ She dusted herself down as she stood and wrapped a strong arm round her friend’s shoulders, rubbing warmth into her back.

Saryoni laughed through her tears, inhaled and exhaled. ‘Kurapli was just trying to be nice.’

‘Aye, and look where it gets her.’ She turned to the wise woman. ‘Can’t take her anywhere.’

Saryoni gave her an evil look. It didn’t stick.

Kurapli cleared her throat, _back to business_. ‘I’m afraid we must talk about tonight. The rites can’t wait, and I want you to join us. You’re her kin, and she,’ Kurapli paused a second, ‘I’m sure she’d want you there too.’

Saryoni wiped her eyes, composed herself. ‘I would be honoured, thank you. I don’t remember…’ For the first time since it happened, the dream she’d had in the Ald’ruhn tradehouse, of Mistress Drath and their trip to the tomb, crossed her mind. She fought off a sudden feeling of vertigo. ‘I don’t remember _much_ of the rituals, though. I would hate to... bungle something.’

‘That’s thoughtful,’ Kurapli shrugged, ‘but your role would be small. Simply be with us, sing with us, pray with us.’ She stood tall in the glow of the dawn. ‘We mourn her passing, but we celebrate your mother’s path ahead, and that she will watch over us among the ancestors.’

Saryoni nodded uncertainly. ‘This might be silly,’ she began, ‘but I have to ask: there’s no way I could speak to her? When I was very young, an elder took me to meet the spirits…’

Kurapli’s smile was kind, a little sadness in her eyes. ‘I am sorry, Tholer. It’s no small thing to speak with the dead. And Wise Woman Maesa must complete her journey first.’

‘The path to the ancestors,’ Addut-Lamanu explained to her friend, ‘it takes forty-nine days and nights, with seven rites on our end to guide the spirit onward. Maybe after all that?’ The question was directed toward Kurapli.

‘It’s possible, though even then I can’t speak on Nibani’s behalf. But,’ she gestured for Saryoni to walk with her down the beach, ‘I have a few questions of my own.’ Addut-Lamanu made her excuses, began burying the little fire, giving them space.

The sound of voices from the village. The past several hours suddenly felt unreal to Saryoni. The sea had nothing to offer her, and she still had work still to do.

‘So,’ Kurapli began, once a fair distance had passed between them and the camp. ‘It’s a very strange turn of events that brings you here, unbidden, at such a time of upheaval for the Urshilaku. I hardly slept thinking of it. Perhaps you could ease my mind, Tholer?’

Saryoni studied the young woman, perhaps her first clear-eyed look since arriving at camp. Her hair was cropped short at the sides, tied back in a style she more commonly associated with the hunters. In her years in the Fane, Saryoni was compelled to learn how to read a face in an instant, to perceive what it presented and what it hid, and to trust in her instincts. Kurapli’s eyes were sharp and curious, and Saryoni could tell she was unused to treating anyone with deference.

Besides her mother, of course.

‘I’m afraid,’ she dropped her gaze to the sand, ‘that if I tell you the truth it’ll sound like I’m pulling rank.’

Kurapli gave a snorting laugh, surprising the archcanon. ‘Well, let me unburden you: this isn’t the Legion and you’re not my superior. Proceed.’ Her smirk was not unkind.

Saryoni exhaled, glad to release tension she hadn’t noticed in her shoulders. She stopped walking and turned to face the wise woman. ‘Apologies. I keep expecting people to be afraid of me.’

‘Never too late to break a bad habit,’ she shrugged. Saryoni reflected that the tribe was in good hands.

‘Well,’ she looked out toward the northern islands. Somewhere out there was the hermitage where she’d written her _Sermons_, where she’d laid out her vision to guide the Temple for centuries to come, when she was barely older than the woman in front of her. How much she’d demanded, how little she’d understood. ‘This might be more your domain than mine. I’ve been having… dreams.’

Kurapli folded her arms as a gust of wind blew in from the sea. ‘Go on.’

‘They’re not like most dreams, not unintelligible, muddled things. These feel as real as you standing before me. I keep returning to a cave, with a beam of light from the ceiling onto a pool of water, and standing in the pool-’

‘-a woman in a blue dress?’ Kurapli suggested, eyebrow raised.

Saryoni’s mouth hung a little slack. ‘Y-yes. You…’

The humour had passed from Kurapli’s face. ‘Nibani had similar dreams, in her last days with us. She believed she was being summoned to the Cavern of the Incarnate, to speak with Lady Azura herself.’

Saryoni swallowed her nerves. She hummed thoughtfully. ‘What did she say to my mother?’

‘That we would receive two guests, who would redeem the false gods, and lead the tribe in our time of need. One, a daughter of the people, and the other-’

‘-an outlander?’

Kurapli nodded. ‘She gave you the same words, then. Strange.’

‘Not exactly. But I had been studying the lost prophecies for some time, and my… _friend_ among the imperials passed on some unpleasant secrets. I fear they may be manipulating the situation.’

The wise woman considered this a moment. ‘Lady Azura is a force for change, adaptation, revolution, and the prophecies love a paradox.’ She grinned, all teeth. ‘Perhaps Azura’s pulling the strings of your _friend_.’

Saryoni chuckled. ‘I’ll tell him next time I see him, gods willing. Think he’d get a kick out of it, honestly.’

‘Wonder if Nibani knew that when Azura said a daughter, she meant _hers_.’ Kurapli thought aloud, as if considering the weather.

Saryoni felt the hair on her arms raising. ‘Steady on. You don’t think _I’m_…’

‘Maybe. Maybe not. The Lady loves a metaphor. But the blight spreads from Red Mountain, Vvardenfell is conquered not by armies but by treaties, there is talk of the Sixth House awakening, and our hunters bring home stranger stories every week. None of the elders remember a time like it. And now your arrival? A wise woman begins to make connections. Perhaps Nibani knew we were at the end of one thing, the start of another.’

Saryoni rubbed a hand across her forehead. She felt nauseous, and the effects of a sleepless night seemed to hit her all at once. She focused on her feet beneath her, took in all the wonders of the world around her, the coast aglow in the honeyed light of the dawn, full of beauty, full of mystery.

‘Well, shit,’ she said.

Kurapli laughed. ‘Exactly.’ She gripped her shoulder warmly. ‘So! We have much to do before tonight’s ritual, and you’ve many people to meet before then.’ They turned to head back along the strand. ‘Azura won’t mind if we leave prophecy to the prophets for a day.’

Saryoni nodded and pulled her cloak tighter around her against the gathering wind. She glanced toward the sea, where dark clouds had begun to dot the horizon.

* * *

Mehra Milo’s brow furrowed as the boat’s sail snapped taut in the wind. They’d made what repairs they could on the beach at Khuul, but two hasty departures in succession put their nerves on edge. One bad rip and they’d have to row the rest of the way, burning daylight they couldn’t afford. Especially if the map Oxton picked up in a bar in Pelagiad - _B’Vek_ \- wasn’t worth the faith they’d placed in it. The spray stung their eyes as the boat crested a wave, but speed mattered more.

When the wind calmed again, Milo pulled the map out of an inner pocket. They thought of all their years running from guards, their name on a list somewhere in the Justice Offices, Ordinators picking out a nice cell for them in the Ministry of Truth. And all of it - the Nerevarine, the Urshilaku, maybe the whole poxy island - resting on a scrap of paper barely as wide as their palm.

Oxton was still under the effects of the herbs she’d taken the night before, but her soft, wordless sounds of pain were coming more regularly now, more urgent. Milo studied the map for the tenth, twentieth time.

The symbols were rudimentary, nothing to plan an invasion by, but clear enough to a frequent traveller. The villages of Ald Velothi and Khuul, the ruin of the old daedra temple, and there, assuming the author made a fair stab at the proportions, the grazelands.

There, Milo told themselves. Just get there, and all will be well. Control what’s in your power, let Vivec take the rest.

LaCroix was perched on the gunwale, fastening a knot. Under duress, she’d finally found her sea legs, and seemed a natural with ropes. She glanced back to the tiller, waiting for signals, and if the cold and wet and hard sailing was affecting her, she made no outward sign. Milo gave a tight little smile they hoped looked reassuring. LaCroix turned back toward the bow, her face a mask.

The wind died a moment as they rounded the headland. On the shore, the wreck of what looked like a trading ship, several times larger than their own. The stern had long since rotted away, and the craggy shells of giant mudcrabs scuttled around in its ribs.

In the calm, they could hear Ana-Amari’s voice, singing a tune in broken Dunmeris. The melody was familiar to Milo, though the words escaped them. They hummed along for the last verse.

‘You from Mournhold?’ Milo asked, after the last note had faded. ‘Tune’s familiar.’

Ana-Amari shrugged. ‘As much as anywhere. Khajiit brings her daughter there, many moons ago. Then she meets Reinhardt. Then, there are troubles. Then, khajiit brings her family to Balmora. Then, there are troubles.’

Milo gave a wry smile. ‘That one’s familiar too, Ana.’

A cliff racer screamed dangerously low overhead. LaCroix lined up a fireball. The racer dropped into the water with a crackle and a hiss.

‘This one has family of their own?’

Milo shrugged, pulling hard on a rope as the wind turned. ‘Hard to say. Tricky to stay in touch with the imps up your arse.’ They spotted a raincloud to the north, looked for a sheltered way forward. ‘The Priests are family enough, anyway. Your daughter still in Balmora?’

They’d asked innocently enough, but the air seemed to grow even colder. A moment passed, then another, so that Milo wondered whether her voice had been carried away on the wind. Then Oxton’s voice, a low shadow of a cry. Then the den-mother spoke, running a soothing paw down her kitten’s cheek.

‘No.’

Milo bit her cheek. ‘Sorry. Shouldn’t’ve asked.’

Ana-Amari sighed raggedly. ‘You did not know.’ She looked out at the waves, then down at her feet. ‘May Ana-Amari tell you something?’

‘Course.’

‘This one would have liked Fareeha,’ she smiled. ‘Full of grand schemes, big ideas about love, society, justice. Fine qualities in a thief,’ she deadpanned.

‘Takes after her mum?’

‘Ha. This one flatters us.’ She peered out at the horizon, picked at a loose thread on her jacket. ‘The guild was a big happy family back then. Fareeha grew up among some of the finest bullshitters you ever met. One day they told her of the Bal Molagmer, the noble thieves of yore, and that was that. The notion that stealing from the rich might aid more than just the thief…’ She gave something between a laugh and a sigh. ‘One day Fareeha declares she and some comrades are moving to Riften, Skyrim province. They will found their own guild, and they will wear the purple gloves of the Bal Molagmer. No thought for her safety, no care for the risk…’ she stroked Oxton’s hair, absently, as she trailed off.

‘How long since you saw her?’ Milo asked, little more than a whisper.

She thought a while. ‘Ten years now, maybe eleven. She would be… thirty-five, Ana-Amari thinks. Maybe has kittens of her own.’

‘Maybe.’ The boat crested another wave, the spray matting Milo’s hair to their brow. ‘I mean, the imps have had the island under a thumb for donkey’s years. Maybe she’s been writing letters, and they’re all just sitting in an office somewhere.’

Ana-Amari met her gaze for a second. ‘Maybe. That is comforting,’ she exhaled, though she looked away as she said it.

A flash of light in the distance. Milo counted inwardly… eight, nine… then a rumble like an atronach rising from slumber. They gritted their teeth. Too close by half.

As a second flash lit the horizon, Oxton woke with a gasp. She grabbed at Ana-Amari’s jacket with her good arm, eyes like dinner plates. LaCroix snapped to attention, staggering across the rocking boat to her side, running a soothing hand through her hair.

Milo cursed, called to the assassin over the gathering wind. ‘Herbs’ve worn off! Take the helm, I’ve gotta take a look at her!’

LaCroix frowned. ‘I have never steered a boat!’ she protested.

‘Piece of piss, mate! Boat pushes left, you push right! Like riding a guar!’

‘I have never ridden a fucking guar either!’ LaCroix turned her head as Oxton screamed in agony, a faint light glowing from the ring on her left hand. The assassin tore herself away and grabbed hold of the wooden tiller, steadying it under her grip. Milo gave her a firm squeeze on the shoulder as they dropped down to Oxton’s side.

‘Lena? Lena, it’s okay, it’s me, I’ve got you,’ they said, holding the young thief’s attention. Her face was red, streaked with tears, deep, worried creases across her forehead.

‘Milo…’ she rasped, her breathing laboured.

‘I’m here, mate. Talk to me.’

Her knuckles were white on her den-mother’s sleeve. ‘Fuck this for a game of soldiers, Milo.’

They laughed together half a moment before Oxton gave a low growl of pain. ‘Wouldn’t happen to have one of them night-night spells handy,’ she gritted her teeth.

Milo nodded, readied the arcane symbols in their hands.

‘Milo…’

‘Yeah, mate.’

‘I ain’t dying today, right?’

‘Course not,’ they smirked. ‘Lot of fuss over nothing.’

Oxton gave a short laugh, lay back, closed her eyes.

‘Sleep well, babes.’

In the uncanny light of the storm, the little boat was illuminated, for just a second, before the gloom settled. Oxton’s eyes fluttered as she settled back into the blankets.

The scars crept past her elbow.

* * *

The plaza of St. Olms was busier than it’d been in years.

Jobasha greeted the friendly faces at the door as he entered. It looked like the messages he’d distributed through the fleet of canton gondoliers had gotten through. In the square, bigger crowds than even the feast of St Llothis could muster, as a troupe of actors recreated the events that sparked the uprising, their words rising over the mass of mingled voices. From how Oxton told it, creative liberties had been taken.

Opposite their makeshift stage, the local temple had organised a soup kitchen, staffed by a motley crew of priests, pilgrims, and whoever happened to have a spare pair of hands. The old storage rooms, mothballed for years, had been converted to sleeping quarters. Yngling manor was festooned in colourful home-made bunting, and a banner was draped across the councillor’s coat of arms that read, in bold, angular script: ‘Welcome to Free St. Olms’.

Jobasha allowed himself a little inward smile. Not bad on short notice. Sitting under the great tree, chatting up a storm, a gaggle in the black leathers and facemasks of the Morag Tong, their short blades in a neat pile against the trunk. He waved. One saluted back, perhaps his contact, perhaps just a very polite assassin.

‘_JOBASHA!!_’

Ye gods.

Burly arms swept him off his feet and up onto a disturbingly high shoulder.

‘Greetings, friend Reinhardt.’

‘Hello!! Look at all this!! Behold what you have done!!’

‘That is a serious oversimplification, and one I’d prefer didn’t get back to the ordinat-’

‘Bahhahahah!! Friend Jobasha is too modest. I have been telling all the people here of your noble deeds!!’ He swept an arm across the crowd, a few of whom had turned toward the nord’s booming voice. A few others cheered gamely, though Jobasha was unconvinced they knew who or what they were cheering _for_.

‘Wonderful. Kindly return Jobasha to solid ground, would you.’

‘Of course!!’ The old thief seemed to be relishing his outside voice. As he obliged, Jobasha noticed the hammer strapped around Reinhardt’s back. It looked like it could cause earthquakes.

‘You came prepared,’ he observed.

‘Bahhh, it is just for show!!’ He leaned in conspiratorially. ‘Who needs fine silver blades, when a good hammer makes even the ordinators run and hide?? Bahhhhahahahaha!! Hooray!!!’

A couple of dozen _hoorays_ chorused back. Though Jobasha had many qualities, charisma was far down the list. Reinhardt, on the other hand, could inspire blood from a stone. Useful. He brought himself back to the present with a polite cough. ‘Well, the best battles are the ones you do not have to fight, are they not?’

‘No!!! The best are the ones you win!! Hooray!!!’

Jobasha pinched the fur between his eyes as an even larger cheer echoed back. ‘Yes, Jobasha supposes this is technically correct.’

A figure in black leathers jogged over, then, putting a gentle hand on Jobasha’s arm as they leaned in and whispered something. Jobasha nodded to the assassin, apprehension in his eyes. ‘Many thanks. Stay ready, but please, no escalation.’

They narrowed their eyes. ‘That’s up to them, isn’t it.’ It was not a question.

Reinhardt had watched the exchange with uncharacteristic reserve. The Tong operatives seemed to dampen his joie de vivre. ‘What did they say, friend Jobasha?’

A hubbub at the door to the plaza, a space in the crowd forming.

Through the large wooden gates, a Dunmer in civilian clothes, but carrying an ordinator’s helmet under one arm, and flanked by two large mer, similarly attired. They were apparently unarmed, but the crowds backed away as if from a spreading flame. The smaller mer stood to attention, scanning the room with sharp eyes.

‘My name is Elam Andas,’ a refined accent that echoed up to the rafters, drawing apprehensive murmurs among the crowd. The Tong had quietly holstered their blades before the mer arrived, and now stood in postures of studious nonchalance. ‘You may know me as the captain of Vivec’s Ordinators. But as you can see,’ he indicated his outfit, ‘I am here as a fellow citizen, a fellow traveller in the light of Vivec.’

The plaza fell still as a graveyard. 

‘We have no desire,’ Andas continued, ‘to employ force until all other avenues…’ a few brave jeers rose from the crowd, ‘until _all other avenues_ have been exhausted. Now.’ He consulted a scroll. ‘We would like to speak with… Jobasha, the bookseller. He is known to have frequented the plaza since its occupation, and his shop is empty.’

Jobasha’s heart broke as he imagined a dozen pairs of golden boots stamping through his home. He steadied himself, took a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak.

‘I’m Jobasha!’ came a voice from the branches of the great tree.

The ordinators turned to where the sound had originated, Andas returned his attention to the scroll. The bookseller’s jaw hung open a second before he found his voice. ‘This one-’

‘I’m Jobasha!!’ a young orsimer yelled from the top of the outer wall of Yngling manor. A few laughs came from the youths around her, emboldened by the rows of bodies between them and the guards.

‘No, I’m Jobasha!!’ An old priest at the soup kitchen.

‘I’m Jobasha!!’ One of the masked Tong.

Soon, the whole plaza was chanting. Andas seemed unmoved, though his associates were visibly seething. He waited patiently, though the plaza itself seemed to tremble underfoot. As the chants blended into a generalised roar, he turned on his heel, drew a hammer and nail from a bag, and fastened the scroll to the plaza’s great wooden door with a decisive _thunk_, before making a dignified exit under what sounded like a thunderstorm.

Reinhardt was the first to move as a hundred conversations sprang up at once, pulling the nail from the wood easily as a stem from an apple. He scanned the scroll quickly, before raising a hand for quiet. To Jobasha’s surprise, a curious stillness fell.

‘Firstly!!’ he shouted, his hoarse bellow filling the room. ‘I am _not_ Jobasha.’

Ironic cheers and a warm round of applause. The nervous energy in the plaza dissipated, ever so slightly.

He held the scroll aloft. ‘The captain of the watch has decreed!! The plaza is to be cleared of all unlawful occupants!! By midnight, this coming Sundas!! This time is a gift not to be taken lightly, _blah blah blah_...’ the huge thief skipped what might have been legalese, or just rhetorically unsatisfying, ‘all those remaining past the final curfew, will be met with the full extent of the law, in the light of Vivec.’ Reinhardt rolled up the scroll neatly, looked over the heads of the crowd until he spotted Jobasha.

Jobasha had little reason to learn thieves’ cant, but was thankful in that moment for something Ana-Amari had taught him, a sign that she promised would always lead him to the right answer.

_What would den-mother do?_

Reinhardt’s face lit up like a sunrise.

‘People of Vivec!!’ he bellowed. ‘We stand at a crossroads in history!! When you are old, and white-haired, but still very handsome, like me, Reinhardt!!’ Some cheers from the crowd. Jobasha buried his face in his hands. ‘You will tell tales of the coming days to your children, and to their children, and to anyone’s children you meet!!’

He began to pace back and forth in front of the door. ‘The guards mean to frighten us!! They mean for us to go back to the fearful lives we have always lived under their heels!! But they have made a mistake. They have not given us time to run, they have given us time to prepare!!’

‘You may be thinking, _I do not fight_, you may be thinking, _I cannot swing a warhammer like the heroes of Sovngarde_!! Friends!! Neither can Reinhardt!!’ Sincere cheers at this. A few people around Jobasha began applauding. The young khajiit dared to peek between his fingers. ‘But some of you make food!! Some of you build!! Some of you heal!! We will need all of you, and more!!’

A storm was gathering in the plaza of St Olms as the energy in the room reached a fever pitch. ‘We have something the guards do not!! We have each other!! We have the choice of battlefield!! We can make ready for a fight they will not see coming, and will never forget!! Friends!!!’ His face was turning red, veins rising at his temples like the berserkers of myth. ‘They may have the arms, but we have the _HEART!!!!_’

A cheer rose up that could be heard all the way to Vivec’s palace. As it faded, the cogs of organisation meshed into gear as a dozen operations began to take shape. Reinhardt greeted a gang of new friends with fistbumps and bearhugs as he made his way, as surreptitiously as a man the size of a barn can, to the real Jobasha. Reinhardt held his arms wide in greeting.

‘Friend Reinhardt.’

‘I am!!’

‘I do not mean to question how well this one knows his spouse, but we have rather divergent ideas about _what den-mother would do_.’

Reinhardt pressed his fists against his hips. ‘She would be _proud_.’

Jobasha pressed his palms together and breathed through his nose. Gods protect him from the extroverted. He ran a paw through his hair and gathered his thoughts.

‘So. We have five days to make this place into a fortress, make these people into an army, and come out alive.’

‘Yes!! The bards will sing ballads of our gallantry!!’

‘This one has not met many bards. The victors tend to offer better commissions.’

Reinhardt laughed, but looked out across the crowd as he did so. Perhaps he was counting sword arms, and perhaps he preferred _not_ to count the Morag Tong. Something like uncertainty crossed his face. Jobasha laid a paw on his forearm.

‘In seriousness, I… thank you, friend Reinhardt. Perhaps a little recklessness is what we needed. Jobasha will talk to his friends in the docks, see if we cannot add to our ranks.’

He turned to leave, but Reinhardt cleared his throat, a quiet kind of gesture Jobasha had not before seen in him. Jobasha turned.

‘It has…’ the thief rumbled, a little lost for words. ‘It has been a difficult time, for a long time. Perhaps one victory, by the will of the gods, can change everything.’

Jobasha clenched his jaw and nodded. ‘Well, Jobasha should head back to the shop and survey the damage. This one may rest his head there should he need to.’

‘You have my gratitude,’ Reinhardt smiled.

‘Do not stay up to late, either, or Ana-Amari-’

‘-will have your hide!! I know!! Bahhhaahahah!! To victory, friend Jobasha!!’ With that, he turned to find himself face to face with another mob of new allies.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, Jobasha slipped out the back door toward the foreign quarter canton, praying to whoever was listening that he still had a home to go to.

* * *

Wise Woman Kurapli stood before a bonfire in the middle of camp. Around her, the whole Urshilaku nation, all the hunters home at once; at a rough estimate, Saryoni guessed around eight hundred souls, maybe more. There was perfect stillness for a moment, only the sound of the fire crackling. She spoke then, her voice steady, silhouetted in the gloaming.

‘Death is not the end,’ she said. She let the words hang in the air for a long moment. Nothing but the sound of hundreds of minds listening, the smell of smoke and the growl of the flames. ‘We grieve for Nibani Maesa, because we loved her, and continue to love her. We grieve because we can no longer speak together as we once did, or eat together, or dream together. But death is not the end, because what she taught us, how she moved us, and how we loved each other, remains with us.’ She placed a hand over her heart.

Hundreds of voices of the Urshilaku, in recitation: ‘_Peace before us,_ _peace behind us, peace below us, peace above us_.’

Saryoni was not expecting these words, but felt their familiarity in her bones. She looked to Addut-Lamanu, who had known when to speak and what to say. Her friend took her hand in her own.

Kurapli continued. ‘As Nibani Maesa’s spirit will go to a better world, so we will some day journey on from grief, which is only a stopping place. Tonight, we stay a while with her body, and say our goodbyes.’

‘_Joy before us, joy behind us, joy below us, joy above us_.’

‘As Nibani Maesa’s spirit leaves her body, so her body leaves the people. Who will stay and keep the fire burning?’

One of the hunters stepped forward, wearing a hardened leather cuirass with intricate, swirling blue patterns. It reminded Saryoni of a wave, or the coils of a scroll. ‘I will do this,’ he said, in the stiff air of one unused to public performance. Several others in similar gear seemed to join him.

‘_Confidence before us, confidence behind us, confidence below us, confidence above us_.’

‘Thank you, Yakum. Now,’ Kurapli addressed the people, ‘in the hour of Azura, we take Nibani Maesa on the last steps of her earthly journey. Who will help me carry her?’

Addut-Lamanu gave her friend a nudge. She stepped forward, along with several elders. They were arranged into pairs, and from in front of the bonfire, a pallet was passed between them. Tholer Saryoni braced herself, and bore her mother’s body on her shoulder. The elder opposite her placed her arm over her shoulder. Saryoni looked across and met kind eyes.

‘Name’s Maeli,’ she whispered. ‘Stick with me, I’ve the best rice-wine in the village.’

Saryoni gave Maeli a confused look, which seemed to delight her. ‘How far is it to the tomb?’ she asked.

Maeli hummed. ‘Not far. Lucky the grazelands are nearby this year. Shouldn’t be more than a half-hour, I’d say.’

Saryoni raised her eyebrows and adjusted the weight of the pallet. None of the other bearers seemed fazed by it. ‘You must get plenty of exercise up here.’

‘Maybe!’ Maeli cackled. ‘Maybe they just let you go soft in that temple.’

Saryoni smiled back. The procession set off at a gentle walking pace, and a voice in front struck up in song. The rest of the party joined in, the sound of voices filled the ashlands, and Nibani Maesa made her last journey in the world.

* * *

A cave, with water running through it. Lena Oxton recognises it immediately, but is confused. Didn’t Lady Azura say next time would be the last time?

She follows the stream as she has before. She’s starting to get the hang of this place.

But the stream seems to run longer than usual. She keeps walking, waiting for the passage to open into the main chamber, where she met with a god.

The passage keeps on going.

She glances down at her left arm. It is worse than before.

She looks up at a young Dunmer woman.

‘Holy fucking Talos on his dragonshitten _throne!!_’ says Lena Oxton.

The young woman giggles brightly. ‘Outlander swears are so fun! _Augh_ it’s so good to finally meet you!’

Oxton fumbles for words and settles for making a sound of purest confusion.

The woman holds out a hand. ‘I’m Peakstar! You’re Lena Oxton, the outlander Nerevarine. Gosh, that’s so exciting. Do you know what a big deal this is!?’

‘Uhm. No? Maybe? Like, Milo seems to think… I mean, it _seems_ like it’s all-’

‘Oh I’m sorry, Lena, I’m not even giving you a chance here. Look, why don’t we go on an adventure, get to know each other? Some people like to make friends by _doing_ rather than talking, don’t they. You want to do a bandit hideout or a _necromancers’ den_?’ She makes spooky hand gestures. Oxton finally processes the fact that the young woman’s eyes, unlike the vibrant red of every Dunmer she’s ever met, are utterly white.

‘Necromancers!? Wh-’

‘Done! Okay get ready.’ Peakstar puts her hands together and closes her eyes, as a blinding light begins to envelop her. Oxton shields her eyes with an arm, and when the light fades, she is face to face with the innumerable, monstrous teeth of a full-grown daedroth.

As it swings a vicious claw at her face, she instinctively casts a teleportation spell, and is astonished to find that it works. Catching her bearings, she notices a floor trap between her new position and the monster. She whistles to gain its attention, and as it charges, casts a fireball at the trap trigger.

As the beast howls into what looks like a bottomless pit, Oxton makes a realisation. She can… cast fireballs now?

Before she has time to process this, two skeletons bearing broadswords haul themselves out of the pit. She turns and runs with a violent curse. The corridor leads to a t-junction. She turns left, sees a huge, ghostly skeleton in a tattered cowl, shrieking through its ruined jaw, pulls a 180, barrels down a narrow passageway, toward a door with a heavy padlock. Hearing three unique ways to die bearing down over her shoulder, she decides to take a risk and bypasses the lock with a blink.

‘Oh! Aren’t you supposed to be a thief?’

‘Mara’s _fucking _pocket, how’d you get in here!?’

‘Don’t thieves usually pick locks? I thought you’d enjoy that…’ Peakstar seems deep in thought.

‘Mate, I dunno what in the good godly fuck’s going on but there’s three angry undead lads out there and I’d rather put some distance between us.’

‘Oh! Sure!! This way.’ Peakstar runs down a flight of stairs into a huge burial chamber. There are flickering torches on the walls, their light dancing across the spiderwebs and ancient urns, pitching the huge, distorted shadows of three dremora demons across the room. On the far side, raised on a plinth, a very shiny treasure chest. ‘Lena!! Use your bow!!’

‘You what!? I’ve never-’

Lena Oxton has a bow in her hand, and feels a heavy quiver of vicious, barbed arrows on her back. She draws one and fixes it in her sights. Without thinking, she releases.

Peakstar is dancing around the dremora, swinging a halberd in diabolical circles as she flows between them like water. The arrow flies true, and catches a dremora square between the eyes, a gout of blood exploding into the gloom.

‘Yes!!’ Peakstar yells, ‘I knew you could do it!’ Using the halberd as a brace, she plants a powerful kick in a second demora’s chest, sending it toppling into a firepit.

A small voice worries at the edges of Oxton’s mind, but she is full of adrenaline. The last demon, however, has gotten the drop on Peakstar, and stands behind her, cruel daedric blade raised, jaws agape in a roar of bestial fury.

‘Peakstar!!’ Oxton yells, ‘Get down!’

Peakstar turns and screams, and immediately hits the deck as the demon swipes through thin air. As it stumbles past its target, Oxton draws a dagger from her belt - when did _that_ get there? - and flings it, overhand, through the darkness.

It sails straight and true and bites into the dremora’s throat. The beast staggers, scrabbling at the wound before pitching backward into a deep, dark pit. Seconds pass as its wailing fades into the ether. Peakstar pulls herself to her feet, covered head to foot in gore, beaming from ear to ear.

‘That was _amazing!!_ Woo!! Let’s go see what the treasure is!’ She turns and jogs up the stairs to the plinth.

‘H-hold on a sec. Would you just- Peakstar!’ Oxton calls after her in vain.

The young woman stops as she reaches the chest, turns with a look of confusion. ‘What is it, Lena?’

Oxton is wholly exasperated, and her heart feels like… like it _should_ be racing, but isn’t. ‘Mate, just what the frig is going on here?’

Peakstar’s smile fades a little. ‘Well, we just beat the bad guys, so now we get the treasure.’

‘No, I get that, but where are we? Why am I here? Why is...’ she checks her left arm, which is immaculate. ‘Just, slow down and pretend I don’t understand a damn thing that just happened.’

‘Oh! Oh, of course,’ she gives a little embarrassed laugh. ‘Come, sit with me.’ She places herself in the middle of the staircase, and motions for Oxton to join her.

‘Kynareth’s untended bush, okay,’ Oxton rubs her temples as she sits. ‘So. You’re Peakstar, the last Nerevarine, right?’

‘Uh huh!’

‘But you seem…’

‘Pretty young, yep. Most of the other Nerevarines lived to a hundred and fifty or more. Not me, though!’

‘Bloody hell, pal.’

‘It’s not so bad,’ she says, but she doesn’t meet Oxton’s eyes. ‘Well, this is the Cavern of the Incarnate. This is where all the failed Nerevarines come once their trials are over.’ She affects a pompous tone. ‘_I was not the one, but I wait and hope_, am I right?’

‘Okay, but I’ve been here before, when Azura spoke to me, and it wasn’t anything like this.’

‘Oh. _Oh…_’ Peakstar’s face drops. ‘Oh Lena, I’m so sorry, I thought... Um. I just thought this would be a nice way to welcome you here, seeing how, you know...’

‘Peakstar,’ Oxton feels bile rising in her throat, ‘what are you talking about?’

The young woman opens her mouth, a look of distress passing across her face. Hands shaking, Oxton draws her silver dagger from its scabbard, and sees herself reflected in the blade’s flawless surface.

Sees her own eyes, wide and and terrified and utterly white.

* * *

Yakum shook the dice in his fist and rolled them into the hard earth. He grumbled under his breath at the outcome and passed them to the hunter on his left.

Close to an hour since the procession had set off. Even at the stately pace befitting of a Wise Woman, they must have reached the burial caverns by now. Yakum had been there once before, the last time they’d laid to rest the last Ashkhan, Sul-Matuul, the people’s war leader. Back then, of course, there hadn’t been any immediate call for a new Ashkhan, so they’d gone without for years. There’d been rumblings among the hunters that their long season of peace was drawing to a close.

Yakum’s opponent gave a muted cheer as her numbers turned up. She took the small bundle of sticks from the middle of the circle, each player tossed in a new one, and the game continued.

Gods, he could kill for a decent deck of cards.

He heard his name being called in a forceful whisper by the lookout on the beach. No urgency in her voice, though. He rolled his eyes and excused himself from the game. Better be worth it.

As he neared the dunes, he saw the lookout was lying flat on her belly, peering between fine blades of seagrass at something on the waterside. Her posture was not one of fear but curiosity, as if sighting a rare bird. He crouched low and joined her.

She pointed to her eyes then down to the shore.

Floating out of the darkness, a rotten old boat. Its sail was thinner than an elder’s breeches, and if its crew were regular sailors then Yakum was a Hlaalu councillor.

‘Bandits?’ the lookout hissed, though she sounded as puzzled as he felt.

Yakum shook his head. ‘The tall one moves like a hunter, but the others? No threat to us.’

‘Think we should hail them?’

He considered it. It’d been a long time since he’d seen a new face in the grazelands, then two arrivals in quick succession. Strange tidings. If they were travellers who’d lost their way, the people’s code of honour dictated they be welcomed...

Then, Yakum saw the body.

The lookout touched his arm. ‘Is that…’

The tall one and the Dunmer were off-loading something wrapped in blankets that looked disturbingly humanoid. They were handling them far too gently to suggest foul play. He made up his mind and stood.

‘Outlanders!’ he called out in the common tongue. ‘You walk on Urshilaku land. What do you want?’

The Dunmer’s face lit up. ‘We made it!’ Their voice broke for joy as they carried the body towards him. 

Nothing about the scene unfolding before him made sense, and his hand drifted toward his shortsword. A Khajiit woman hopped out onto the sand and jogged forward, hands raised in a pose of surrender.

‘This one’s name is Ana-Amari, Corinthe nation. This one’s friend is direly ill and needs to see the wise woman, Nibani Maesa. Please,’ there was exhaustion and desperation in her voice, and she looked like she hadn’t slept in days, ‘she has little time.’

Then the others reached him, and Yakum saw a young woman who’d beaten him at cards, who still bore the Ring of Azura, and whose recent encounter with corprus had left her hanging by a thread.

It was real, then: the ring, the prophecies. Azura had sent the people a Nerevarine, in the form of a young n’wah from the empire who probably cheated at cards. His mouth hung open as he struggled to form a coherent response. The lookout jogged his elbow, asked for guidance. Yakum composed himself, looked the Dunmer in the eye.

‘Can you speak the language of the people?’

‘Understand,’ said the priest, though their accent offended Yakum’s ears.

‘Fine. The outlanders will stay in the village with the hunters. We are going to take the Nerevarine and run to the burial caverns as fast as we can.’

‘Burial caverns? Here for wise woman. Where’s Nibani Maesa?’

Yakum looked at them straight. ‘In the burial caverns,’ he said.

* * *

Saryoni massaged the stiffness out of her right shoulder, refusing the kind offer of rice-wine from elder Maeli. If what she was about to experience was anything like her time in the Drath family tomb, she’d prefer to remain sober for as long as possible.

From the outside, the Urshilaku burial caverns were nothing like those of the settled Dunmer. Where a wealthy family’s tomb resembled something more like a country villa, complete with decorated archways, paved footpaths a garden for the particularly classy dead, the people had settled for a simple stone door across a cave, set into the side of a large hill. Kurapli raised her hands to bring the procession to an official halt, through the elders had placed her mother’s body on the soft earth a short while earlier. Kurapli knelt in the ash, and began what sounded like a prayer, pale magical light pulsing in her hands.

The light passed from her to the stone, which gently split down the middle, and parted.

A cheer went up, and the party was soon alive with conversation and song, even a few dance circles wherever a lutist and a drummer met. She spotted Addut-Lamanu, twirling around with some of the smaller children as they sang together, lines of joy around her eyes.

Kurapli approached her, smiling, dusting off her palms. ‘Ready?’

Saryoni nodded.

She was wrong. Nothing could have prepared her for what she found inside the stone door. It was as if she was stepping into a real tomb for the first time, and every other crypt in Vvardenfell was simply an echo of what lay before her.

A series of stairs leading down into the cavern, cut into the living rock and worn smooth over countless generations. Flanking this passageway were a series of figures, seated silently in the darkness, holding a spear, or a bottle, or a carved ear of wickwheat. Some, sitting unluckily beneath a stalactite, had been gifted leafy umbrellas. Saryoni struggled to name what they made her feel. Weren’t they awe-inspiring figures of reverence? Like the towering, austere frescos and shrines of the Temple, the faces of gods and saints looking indulgently down upon their subjects, or boldly over their enemies? But these were approachable, matter-of-fact, life-sized, or perhaps even smaller, as time and the elements subtracted from them.

At the foot of the stairs, a broad, round chamber, a shallow pool of clear water in the centre. Evening starlight broke in through a crack in the cavern ceiling, picking out a tiny circle on the ashen floor. The last of the elders entered, and Nibani Maesa was laid gently on the ground by the pool. The elders formed a semi-circle in front of her, making space for Saryoni.

Kurapli took a staff from one of the carved figures with a bow - what kind of stone was it, to have retained its features after centuries in a cave? - and began drawing huge, looping symbols in the earth, scattering thick handfuls of pungent green herbs in a pile. One of the elders spoke a word in old Aldmeris, and the herbs ignited, sending a fragrance into the air that sparked a memory in Saryoni so vivid it took her breath away.

Singly, then in unison, the elders began chanting, as the smoke rose toward the crack in the ceiling, as Kurapli moved anti-clockwise around the chamber, lighting four torches at regular intervals. The light danced, the smoke moved in smooth, swirling shapes, Saryoni found the words drawn out of her like a flower being pulled up by the roots.

Saryoni realised that the cave should not, could not, have been so warm, so welcoming, with only a small fire and some torches for heat. And yet, the smoke filled the air like warm furs in front of a roaring hearth, weariness falling from her bones, anxiety flushed from her mind.

When she had entered alongside Kurapli and the elders, they were a group of no more than twelve, and yet now, it seemed like there were dozens, hundreds more, as the figures watching over the staircase, and surrounding the central chamber, stretched out from their old, folded, depleted forms and drew themselves up to their full heights, solid and grounded and marked with all the fleshly evidence of lives well lived.

She found her attention drawn back to the semi-circle, as the chanting rose in volume and intensity.

As if it had always been so, standing in front of her mother’s body was a young mer, dressed in the plain robes of the Urshilaku wise woman, shoulders squared, a staff in one hand and a pack over her shoulder. The mer’s eyes were white.

The young mer turned her head and met her daughter’s eyes for the first time in decades, and Saryoni felt her heart ache, for here was her mother, at rest, at peace, and finally released from her duties. Finally free.

The spirit of Nibani Maesa looked toward the door to the cave, and slowly raised her arm toward it.

Saryoni frowned as she fought to pull her attention away from the apparition. Somewhere beyond the sound of chanting, she noticed something different in the air, an absence so obvious it had to be pointed out.

There was no music coming from outside the cave, but a man’s voice, shouting desperately for the wise woman.

Kurapli spoke a word to the other elders to continue as she hurried toward the entrance. As Saryoni turned back toward the body, she saw only the back of her mother’s spirit, walking away across the surface of the water.

The elders’ chanting rose into a victorious hymn, a many-parted harmony that echoed so loudly, so joyfully around the walls that she feared they might fall down around her ears. Nibani Maesa walked on, her staff casting the tiniest ripples across the pool.

Saryoni couldn’t help herself, and called her mother’s name.

A step before the spirit moved out of this world and into the next, she turned back toward her daughter, this shade of Nibani Maesa, as young as when Saryoni was new-born, and placed a hand across her heart.

She turned away again, and was gone.

Shouting from the door of the tomb, voices in the tongues of ashlander and outlander, the shuffling of feet carrying a heavy weight. The light in the torches flickered and danced wildly, like wild animals on a chain.

Two people, a tribal hunter and a Dunmer Saryoni didn’t recognise, carrying what could only be a body, the body of a young woman. Her arm was covered from shoulder to fingertip in horrific wounds, and her face was deathly pale.

On her finger was the Ring of Azura.

‘I… know you,’ Saryoni managed to pronounce, though her head was swimming.

Kurapli called out to the other elders to keep chanting as she knelt behind the young woman’s head, channelling a vivid white light into her hands, the herb-fire rising unnaturally high, the smoke turning an ashen green, putrefying the air.

Kurapli’s voice seemed to grow and warp, echoing as if spoken through too many mouths, as the smoke whipped round the chamber like an ash-storm, forcing Saryoni to cover her eyes, the sound of chanting making her ears ring.

Squinting into the darkness, the archcanon thought she saw a figure flickering between the shadows, hovering above the surface of the pool, bathed in blue-green light.

Sound echoing off every surface, something seemed to flow through Kurapli’s hands and into the body of the young woman, lifting her clear off the ground, her arms drooped at her sides like a rag-doll. A ball of light exploded outward with tangible force, as a single word, emanating from everywhere and nowhere, boomed so loud around the chamber that every flame snuffed out at once.

_WAKE_

Silence, then, and Saryoni felt the earth beneath her back, smelt the tang of smouldering herbs, heard the wind whistling through the cave door.

In the darkness, something flickered, pale streaks of gold, like sunlight creeping through broken glass.

As they gathered, they lit up the ruined left arm of the young woman laying perfectly still on the damp earthen floor of the Urshilaku burial chamber.

The golden light flickered, flared, and, as if it had never been, the young woman’s arm faded out of existence.

There was a tiny, metallic tinkling sound as a ring dropped to the floor.

And Lena Oxton opened her eyes.


	12. Five Days in Vvardenfell: One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be one chapter, but it got away from me juuuuuust a little and now it's five chapters.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoy.  
Tx

**Middas**

Ana-Amari heaved the nets into the boat. One of Oxton’s blankets lay on the floor, rumpled and soaked. She lifted it out, threw it lengthways onto the sand. Perhaps it could be salvaged. It fell beside the boat’s old mast, dark with damp and worn smooth over time, its sail a sad mess of stitches and near-transparent cloth. Though the old thief was no expert in maritime affairs, she suspected it had made its last voyage.

The sun was fully above the horizon, and the calls of seabirds cut through the golden light. The small boat carrying the Nerevarine had landed at high tide the night before, and there was a good ten yards between the prow and the waterline.

Ana-Amari took a deep breath. Spit on her paws. Squared her shoulders against the flat boards of the stern. Her feet dug deep into the wet sand. No dice.

She heaved again, muscles straining, and felt the boat begin to budge. One more push…

It skidded forward, down the dune and into the shallows, where it bobbed a few inches off the sea bed, clouds of sand billowing around it. She admired her handiwork, heaving in lungfuls of air.

Noticed she was not alone.

‘I thought you could use some assistance,’ said the Dunmer woman.

Ana-Amari was too winded to be surprised. ‘Warm blessings.’ She turned away from the sea, offered a hand in greeting. ‘Ana-Amari, Corinthe nation.’

The woman nodded politely. ‘A friend of the Nerevarine.’

‘Sure,’ she slapped the sand off her paws, a broad smile on her face. ‘Might not have been Ana-Amari’s first choice, but the kitten is tough as old boots. Good heart, too.’

The woman hummed thoughtfully. ‘Who would you have chosen, Ana-Amari?’

She ran a paw through her grey hair, looked out along the shoreline. ‘Perhaps it is none of khajiit’s business.’

‘The coming days will affect us all, Velothi and outlander alike.’

The den-mother sighed. ‘Ana-Amari would have chosen someone with less to lose.’

The woman looked out toward the sea, her face unreadable.

Ana-Amari followed her gaze. The boat was floating merrily out into the Sea of Ghosts. She cursed loudly in Ta’agra and dived into the water, paddling out after it. In short measure, she caught up with it and hauled herself inside, lying flat until it stopped lurching from side to side.

A call from the shore. Ana-Amari poked her head above the gunwale.

LaCroix was waving to her, sipping something from a small, steaming cup. The Dunmer woman was nowhere.

Ana-Amari grabbed a rope and hopped back into the water, hauling the boat back toward land. Water dripped heavily off her fur. ‘Warm day, spider.’

LaCroix was inspecting the deep rut in the sand where the boat had been. ‘You are stronger than you look.’

The old thief shook what wetness she could out of her fur, which puffed out dramatically. ‘One of the villagers gave khajiit a hand.’

The assassin frowned and glanced over her shoulder toward the camp. ‘Eh,’ she shrugged. ‘I saw you heading for shore with a net, and I thought a day at sea sounded pleasant.’

Ana-Amari glanced enviously at the hot tea. ‘Don’t suppose this one brought a spare.’

‘Correct.’ She inhaled deeply, sipped. A fine, fragrant mist rose into the morning.

Ana-Amari glared at her wetly. ‘Well,’ she shook herself again, ‘when the spider is quite ready.’

LaCroix placed her cup neatly on the sand and vaulted acrobatically aboard.

* * *

Mehra Milo couldn’t be sure what woke them first: the sound of hundreds of people making their way through camp, or the intermittent, enthusiastic roars that started an hour or so later. They rubbed the gunk from their eyes and thanked Vivec the people didn’t tend to keep mirrors.

The sun was high by the time they emerged from the tent set aside for the friends of the Nerevarine. Cresting a dune, they spotted their old boat out in the bay, two familiar figures lazing in the sun. Nice to see them getting along.

Another cheer went up, from the broad ashen fields where the shalk grazed, and Milo followed.

The hubbub came louder and louder as they approached. It seemed the whole tribe had gathered in one spot, encircling about a hundred yards of flat ground. About twenty hunters bearing clubs, young and old alike, chased up and down the field, focused on a small, hard ball. Another cry went up from about half the crowd as one hunter swung at it in a low arc, sending it flying between two high poles, a pair planted at each end of the field.

Milo spotted the Archcanon of the Temple and the Wise Woman of the Urshilaku, sitting on a ridge behind the rows of spectators. Strange days. They seemed deep in conversation, though Kurapli stayed focused on the players. She shouted something toward the field which got lost in the general hubbub, before her gaze passed over Milo. A smile dawned on her and she waved them over. Saryoni turned and met Milo’s gaze. The dissident priest felt a cold hand around their spine. They raised a hand in return and forced their feet to move.

The pair had stood by the time Milo reached them. The priest gave a low bow. Though Kurapli had personally made arrangements for their party, Saryoni had kept her distance. Milo couldn’t imagine where they might start - _hey, mind calling off the secret police, I’ve had one good night’s sleep in a decade? can’t help noticing you lead a temple to false gods, that’s weird, eh?_ _what, not to put too fine a point on it, the fuck are you doing here?_

But here she was, Tholer Saryoni, standing before them, hands folded, expression neutral. More than they could’ve hoped for, maybe. ‘That won’t be necessary, Mehra Milo,’ she said. Her voice was firm, and, though rough around the edges with age, she projected effortlessly over the noise of the crowd. Milo straightened up, half a head taller than the archcanon, mouth open, searching for words.

‘We have a lot to discuss, I think,’ said Saryoni, opening an inviting arm away from the crowd.

Milo nodded, glancing over toward the wise woman, who had already turned her attention back to the game, crunching into some kind of fruit. She met their eyes, and winked.

* * *

Ana-Amari strained as she pulled the nets back into the boat. She ran the back of a paw across her forehead and studied the catch.

A tangled clump of seaweed a yard across. The furious, gnashing maw of a single slaughterfish poked out between the strands.

The old thief carefully lifted it by the tail and flicked her wrist toward the sea. A distant _ plop _.

‘They say fishing is marvellously relaxing,’ came a voice from the fore. LaCroix was leant back against the wood, an elbow resting each side of the prow, face tilted toward the sky.

Ana-Amari spat over the side. ‘Forgive Ana-Amari,’ she said, all sweetness, all light, ‘she foolishly believed the spider would _ help _ in some fashion.’

LaCroix glanced up. ‘I am an assassin, not an _ assist _in,’ she said, ever so smugly.

‘Gods and demons,’ she rolled her eyes. ‘This one spends too much time with the kitten.’

Her smirk faded. A crowd of gulls gathered on the far side of the bay, crying blue murder. After a long moment, she spoke. ‘Have you heard anything from the healers?’

Ana-Amari shook the last of the seaweed back into the dark water. ‘Stopped by this morning. Asleep. Still miraculously cured. They don’t know if she needs a doctor for healing or a scholar for explanations.’

‘The elders say they saw Azura.’

Ana-Amari glanced over her shoulder. ‘They _ say _. Good an answer as any, khajiit supposes.’

LaCroix tilted her head. ‘You are not convinced? After all that?’

‘You are?’

The assassin shrugged extravagantly. ‘If the sky turns red, I do not say _ it is blue _ simply because that is normal.’

Ana-Amari pondered this as she took a seat on the boards, leaning forward, elbows on knees. ‘Perhaps Ana-Amari dislikes the idea the gods might have taken notice.’

LaCroix looked her straight in the eye. ‘You need not fear the gods while I am around.’

The old thief raised an eyebrow as the assassin held a stony expression. Then a quirk of a smile turned her lips upward. Then a bright sound escaped her lips, and before she knew it, Ana-Amari joined her, a full body laugh washing over them both, the first either had felt in days, maybe weeks, maybe longer.

* * *

Milo looked toward the boat, the sound of her friends’ laughter carrying clean across the water.

‘Your colleagues seem to be recovering well.’ Saryoni was walking alongside them, hands folded behind her back. Milo studied her carefully. The archcanon sighed a little. ‘Perhaps we ought to deal with the... larger questions before the small talk.’

‘I would appreciate that, archcanon,’ Milo nodded.

They fell back into an easy stride, moving slowly up the beach, the sounds from the game gradually whipped away by the breeze. Saryoni seemed to be searching hard for words.

‘We,’ she began, addressing the horizon, ‘are in rather an odd time, historically speaking.’

Milo chuckled. ‘Yes, archcanon.’

‘Oh, by the three. The nearest ordinator is in Gnisis, Mehra, Saryoni is fine.’

‘Very well, Saryoni,’ Milo nodded. ‘I prefer Milo.’

‘I see.’ A few strides in silence. ‘You used to work in the Library, did you not?’

‘I did. Learned a lot there.’

Saryoni raised an eyebrow. ‘A few things we’d rather you hadn’t?’

‘Depends who ‘we’ are, Saryoni.’

She nodded. ‘An excellent question, Milo. One I have been considering very deeply of late.’

Milo looked at her, expectant.

Saryoni exhaled deeply, slowed to a halt. Milo, half a step ahead, turned to face her. ‘It is not easy for one in my position to say they have been wrong.’

A smile broke across Milo’s face. ‘Au contraire, archcanon.’

Saryoni raised her eyebrows. ‘Forgive me, my Breton isn’t-’

‘_Saying _ is the easy part. The hard part is making amends.’

Saryoni blinked, nodded. ‘Very true, Milo. Well, let me begin with this: there are no three people in Vvardenfell who know the Nerevarine prophecies better than you, Kurapli and I. Between your business with the Sixth House, reports from the Urshilaku scouts, and,’ the events of the previous night flashed through her mind once more, ‘well, we can no longer dismiss the signs. We need to prepare for the worst, and we need every ally we can muster.’

Milo had been looking out toward the sea. They shook their head, ever so slightly, jaw jutted. They glanced up at the heavens. ‘You know when was the last time I felt safe, archcanon?’

‘Please, Milo-’

‘Because I don’t. Was I even safe when I worked for you? You keep a file on everyone ever sets foot in that place? How many letters have your scribes written to mourning parents? You got people to keep that stuff off your desk, archcanon?’

Saryoni drew her shoulders back, kept her chin level.

‘Say I help you. Hm? Say every dissident priest emerges from hiding, ready to go to war for you. Say that girl you and your imp friends hauled off a prison ship and threw to the dogs really _ is _ the Nerevarine, and rises off her deathbed, and marches on Red Mountain, and slays a god.’ Milo threw their hands up. ‘Does Vivec turn around and admit he’s been a fraud for millenia? Do you declare the temple obsolete? Do my friends get to see their families? Does the truth stop being treated like high treason?’

Saryoni held their gaze a long time. ‘I have taken things from you I cannot give back. I acknowledge that, and I lament it. Truly I do, Milo.’ Milo put their hands on their hips, studying the sand beneath their feet. ‘I understand the position this puts you in, what I’m asking of you and yours, but if we do not come together now, there may not be much left to argue over.’

‘It’s funny, you know,’ Milo was not laughing, ‘how often small folk have to be the bigger person.’ They folded their arms. ‘If this thing happens, you know, if we do all walk away from this? There shouldn’t _ be _ a Temple. Some wrongs are too big for apologies, Saryoni. And so far, _ sorry _’s all I’m hearing.’

The wind blew, long and low. The sun was high, and bright, but its heat seemed to be elsewhere.

‘You may be right, Milo,’ she said at last. ‘_Gods _, the ordinators would have me in the Ministry of Truth if they heard that.’

‘Wouldn’t be the first.’

Saryoni looked at the Dissident Priest in her midst for a long moment. She exhaled, finally, nodded, studied the sand in turn. ‘So,’ she spoke. ‘Say on my return to the capital I were to order the release of all ideological prisoners, full amnesty for all dissidents. I cannot return the past, but I can offer you a future.’

Milo shifted their shoulders. ‘You could do that. Hall of Justice might even allow it. No offence though, archcanon, but how long will you stay in your post when all’s said and done? And your successor, how likely are they to share such radical ideas?’

‘I will make sure-’

‘No, Saryoni. You can’t make sure of _ shit _ from the next life. And with that line of thinking, there’s plenty who’d help hurry you along. Look: Vivec and Dagoth Ur draw power from the same place, right? That’s the truth the dissidents die for? Well, the Temple draws from Vivec. So do the ordinators. So do you. You and Vivec look at power and think _ I’m good, I can use this power for good _. And maybe you are good! But…’ Milo looked to the skies. ‘It’s impossible. You can’t heal the sick with a sword. You can’t bring peace with an army.’

‘And one can’t have freedom under the Temple?’

They spread their arms. ‘Am I wrong?’

She looked them in the eye for a long breath. ‘Thank you for your candour, Milo. I have much to consider.’

Milo caught her meaning, nodded. ‘I’ll see you back at the camp. And look…’ a mournful look crossed their face, the lines beneath their eyes seeming to deepen in an instant. ‘If it comes down to it, if we’re all headed that way, on up the mountain? I’ll be there.’

‘Three blessings, Milo. Let’s pray it doesn’t come down to it.’ They turned to walk back up the strand. ‘And, Milo?’

They turned.

‘I’m serious, you know. About the amnesty.’

Milo smiled. ‘I’ll believe it when I see it, archcanon.’

Saryoni watched them walk away.

* * *

Lena Oxton heard the sound of voices through the heavy material of the yurt, felt the hours of sunlight radiating off its surface. She batted her eyelids open.

The tent was larger than some of the places she’d rented in Wayrest, and better furnished by far. A fire pit in the centre of the room, surrounded by rugs and cushions. A table on the far wall strewn with powders, herbs, and some surprisingly expensive equipment. All around, a series of wall hangings, figures engaged in a variety of heroic postures. She didn’t recognise any of them.

Oxton propped herself up on her elbows in the low bed. Squeezed her hand over her eyes as she tried to recollect-

Her hand.

Oxton looked down at her left hand, as whole and untouched as the day she was born.

‘Hey Lena!’

Oxton felt her heart leap almost clear out of her mouth. A split second later she recognised the voice, and flopped heavily onto her back.

‘Heavenly thundercunts. Hey, Peakstar.’

The young incarnate sat cross-legged in a rocking chair. A ball of wool sat in her lap, one end connected to a pair of needles working elaborate patterns on what looked like a scarf. ‘I oughta scare you more often, Lena, just to expand my vocabulary,’ she grinned.

‘Am I dead again?’

Peakstar glanced across at her. Oxton winced, the young Dunmer’s bright, blank eyes still falling just the wrong side of unsettling. ‘Nope!’ she beamed. ‘Got them big browns back where they belong, friendo.’

‘T’riffic,’ she released a long, ragged sigh. ‘So, what am I doing here, then?’

Peakstar shrugged. ‘You came to me, Lena! One minute I was in _ my _ room, next I’m in yours. They put you up in the wise woman’s yurt, looks like. _ Fancy _.’ She wiggled her eyebrows.

‘Ah.’ Oxton shuffled upright, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. The earthen floor was warm and dry under her feet. ‘Apologies. Didn’t know I could do that.’ She flexed the fingers on her left hand experimentally.

Peakstar dropped her knitting to the floor. She listened to the voices passing through from outside, a broad smile on her face. ‘Nah, it’s nice. Haven’t heard that sound in a while.’

Oxton ran a hand through her hair. It felt so real. ‘Well, guess we can share it for a bit.’

She looked toward the door of the yurt. Through it, the sounds of a busy afternoon. Her new friend had her eyes closed, breathing in the air of home.

‘So, Peakstar,’ Oxton began. ‘What did, um. What did you have to _do_ as Nerevarine? Milo got as far as, like, the _ifs_ _and buts_, but…’

‘But nothing solid, right?’

Oxton cringed a little. ‘Might sound weird, but you’re the first person I’ve met who might have an answer or two.’ Oxton thought for a second. ‘Who wasn’t trying to kill me.’

‘Oh, yeah, that’ll happen,’ Peakstar nodded vigorously. ‘Well, for me, it involved a lot of martial training, a lot of scholarship in the evenings with the wise woman. Going to Red Mountain was just about my first trip outside of the grazelands.’

‘Red Mountain? You’ve actually been there?’

‘_ Been _ there? Honey,’ she looked smug, ‘I’m _ still _ there.’

‘Merciful gods, Peakstar.’

‘Heh. Sorry. Little graveyard humour. Not that I have a grave.’

Oxton looked profoundly concerned.

‘Sorrysorrysorry, not the point. So, yes, Red Mountain. Wouldn’t recommend it. It’s a volcano, for starters. There’s a bunch of _ huge _ dwarven facilities right inside the crater, all of them full of Dagoth soldiers.’

Oxton mouthed an ‘oh’. ‘Is that where… y’know...?’

‘Oh yeah,’ Peakstar nodded. ‘Yep. Got pretty deep into the main facility with my scouting party. Saw just about everything but the Heart Chamber before a goddamned _ clannfear _ just about tripped over us and sounded the alarm. Went down fighting, though.’ It looked like she was working hard not to let her shoulders sag.

‘Bet you gave ‘em hell, Peakstar,’ Oxton gave a half-smile.

She mugged a little. ‘Sure did, Lena. Hey,’ she looked around the dream-yurt, ‘maybe I’ll show you some day.’

Oxton chuckled. ‘Yeah, nice day out to the bowels of oblivion with the lads, eh.’ An awful thought set the hair on her neck on edge. ‘Did you… do the ashlanders know what you saw?’

She shook her head. ‘I was the last one. No way the rest of the team got out.’ Her white eyes snapped up to meet Oxton’s. ‘But now _ you’re _ here…’

Oxton stood, held her hands palms up. ‘Now, mate, you don’t owe anyone _ anything _, I’m never gunna ask-’

Peakstar leapt out of her chair, started pacing up and down the tent. ‘By the _ Lady _ , Lena! I could… _ we _ could…’ She grabbed Oxton by the wrists, a frantic energy passing through her. Oxton’s teeth went on edge from the sensation down her phantom limb. ‘We have to get all this through to Kurapli, the new wise woman,’ Peakstar continued, Oxton’s heart running a mile a minute. Peakstar’s grip suddenly slipped. ‘Aw, devil's teeth. Not now…’

The walls of the yurt were fading into a pale, grey fog. Peakstar herself was turning translucent, like a reflection on a still pond.

‘Peakstar, what’s happening?’

‘Nothing,’ she smiled. ‘You’re waking up.’

‘Okay,’ Oxton nodded, once. ‘We’ve got a plan, though, right? I’ll be able to find you again?’

Peakstar’s ghost shrugged as she faded to white. ‘Found me before.’

‘I’ll find you again, Peakstar,’ she insisted, the dream slipping away from her. ‘I promise I’ll find you again.’

‘Bye, Lena.’

‘I’ll find you,’ said Oxton. ‘I’ll find you.’

She opened her eyes.

Back in the wise woman’s yurt. Another Dunmer kneeling by her bedside, not much older than Peakstar, but with calm curiosity in her fire-red eyes. She held the back of her hand over Oxton’s forehead, checked the bandages around her left shoulder.

‘Yes, Lena Oxton,’ she said, a deep, calm, tone. ‘Who are you going to find?’

‘You’re Kurapli, the wise woman?’ Her mouth was bone dry, and the words came painfully slow.

‘So they tell me.’

Oxton tried to pull herself upright, despite Kurapli’s quiet protestations. She could not.

‘Peakstar,’ she said. ‘She can tell us what’s in Red Mountain.’

Kurapli’s calm facade vanished.


	13. Five Days in Vvardenfell: Two

**Turdas**

Tholer Saryoni pushed through the doorflap with her shoulder, a bowl of hot rice in each hand.

Addut-Lamanu looked up from her battered book with a smile. ‘There she is.’

‘Talking to me or the rice,’ Saryoni drawled, handing it over.

‘You, obviously,’ she said to the bowl, then looked up at her friend with a wink.

‘Well, you can get your own dinner next time.’ The archcanon looked blankly out the door, where another spirited conversation had struck up in the people’s language. From what she understood, the ideas being exchanged were…  _ frank _ . As to the context, it could have been anything from theology to the result of yesterday’s match.

Wishful thinking, maybe. An uneasy atmosphere was growing in the camp, and Saryoni wondered if she was only imagining the wary glances from some of the younger hunters around the kitchens.

‘A burden shared is a burden halved, love.’ Addut-Lamanu raised an eyebrow.

‘You’re wasted outside the Ministry of Truth, Addy.’

‘Wash your mouth out, couldn’t pay me to join the filth. No offense.’

‘Heavens, some of my best friends are secret police,’ Addut-Lamanu gave an amused huff. ‘You needn’t be a spymaster to tell something’s brewing, though,’ she said to the walls. The tent the people had provided for them both was a far cry from the High Fane, or even Addy’s little manse in Maar Gan. But the cloth was thick, strongly woven in intricate diamond patterns, and if the wind had blown overnight neither of them felt it. ‘Any theories?’ Saryoni was genuinely curious.

‘Well,’ she sniffed, ‘you know the prophecies. Now’d be the time for a grand council. All the tribes of Vvardenfell, not just the Urshilaku. Judging from the last time round, they might be ready to send raiding parties come springtime.’

‘That soon?’ She left her spoon in the rice. ‘There are a lot of fine hunters out there, but I suspect there’s some distance between a wild guar and an ash ghoul.’

‘True enough. Here,’ Addut-Lamanu nodded at Saryoni’s bowl, ‘rice is better when it’s hot, petal.’

Saryoni shook herself and took a large bite. Warm, smoky spices. Fried kwama egg holding it all together in rich, homely clumps. ‘Well, I can’t say I know Wise Woman Kurapli at all, but she certainly seems a cool head. A lot for such a young leader to handle, though-’

‘-oop, speak of the devil,’ Addut-Lamanu rose to her feet as the tent door brushed open.

‘Sit, please,’ Kurapli waved them down. ‘Hope I’m not interrupting anything,’ she gave a little grin.

Somehow, the Archcanon of the Temple felt a small pang of guilt. She gave a small bow. ‘Good morning to you, Kurapli. You’re joining us for breakfast?’

‘If you’ll have me.’ Saryoni offered her a seat beside her on the reed matting. Kurapli obliged, crossing her legs beneath her. She dug into her rice with two short ceramic sticks, drawing out a steaming ball and biting into it with gusto. ‘So Tholer,’ she sighed, a little leftover steam leaving her lips, ‘was your first day on the job half as fun as mine?’

Addut-Lamanu snorted through her food.

Saryoni smiled at them both. ‘More paperwork, I suspect.’

‘Good thing we’ve got long memories around here.’ She scooped up the last of her food and placed the empty bowl to her side. ‘So.’

‘So.’

‘You probably noticed myself and the elders sneaking away late last night.’

Saryoni nodded. She had not.

‘We’re all old enough to remember Peakstar, though I was too young to really understand the pain when she didn’t come back from Red Mountain.’

Addut-Lamanu stacked her empty bowl inside the wise woman’s. ‘I remember. It was years before anyone spoke of her.’

Kurapli drew a deep breath. Saryoni noticed something in her eyes. An intensity. A clarity she hadn’t seen on her arrival just days ago. She suddenly looked much older.

‘The incarnate before Peakstar was centuries ago. We were preparing to wait centuries more, and only the Lady knows if we have that long. We reckoned the hunters’ stories as so much yarn, the spreading blight as just another new disease jumping off the imperial ships. But news of the Sixth House made us wonder.’ She leaned close to the two older Dunmer, her hands clenched tightly. ‘And the Nerevarine has made us believe.’

Anxiety prickled Saryoni’s spine. ‘The imperial girl? What did she-’

‘The Nerevarine has visited the Cavern of the Incarnate in dreams. She has spoken with Peakstar. And Peakstar,’ Kurapli tapped her knee with a finger for emphasis, ‘can guide us to the sanctum of Dagoth Ur.’

The sentence hung in the air. Saryoni felt the heat drift out of her food, her appetite quite gone. Addut-Lamanu rubbed her jaw for a long time, deep furrows on her brow. ‘Kurapli, lass,’ she shook her head slowly, ‘this is… we  _ know _ the girl’s an imp spy! Tholer has the whole bloody chapter and verse, straight from the spymaster!’

‘We know that she is a spy,’ Kurapli held up her hands. ‘And an outlander. And that she bore the moon-and-star, and lost it again, and  _ still _ Lady Azura welcomes her among the incarnates. I know this is hard to believe, Addut-Lamanu-’

‘It ain’t _hard to_ _believe_, lass, it’s… taking the sword out of the Emperor’s hand and doing the job for him. There’s prophecy, and there’s luck, and there’s… whatever in oblivion this is. _The end_, is what it is, going out in a blaze of daft hope. I remember how the people used to be. When I was your age we had better bloody odds of survival.’ Tholer placed a soft hand on Addut-Lamanu’s shoulder as the fight left her. ‘All we’re handing down to you now… we’ve lost so much already, lass.’

Kurapli pushed herself to her feet. ‘Yes, Addy. We have lost. We’ve lost and lost til we’ve hardly a thing worth losing. And when we lost Nibani Maesa, it brought us all together, all the people,  _ journeying far ‘neath moon and _ bloody  _ star _ , and it gave us a  _ chance _ . One we never thought we’d live to see.’ She crouched down beside Addut-Lamanu, offered her her open hand. ‘You were taken from us too young. You should have been an elder, here. I’m sorry there isn’t much  _ here _ left, and a  _ lass  _ for a Wise Woman.’ Addut-Lamanu gave a small, wry laugh, took Kurapli’s hand. ‘But if we don’t move now, I may be the last Wise Woman. Fuck that.’

‘Mouth on this one,’ Addut-Lamanu shook her head at Saryoni, eyebrows high.

Saryoni sighed through a smile. ‘Can’t imagine what mother would’ve thought.’

‘I can,’ Kurapli assured her.

Saryoni’s heart leapt, just for a second. ‘So,’ she cleared her throat, ‘assuming this venture is a success, and the people’s history is accurate, and Dagoth Ur truly does draw his power from the…’ she searched for the name.

‘Heart of Lorkhan,’ Addut-Lamanu supplied.

‘Yes. Assuming that. You believe that when the Heart is destroyed, Lord Vivec’s connection to it will also be severed?’

‘If it really is how the Tribunal attained their godhood, then yes. Your Lord Vivec will regain their mortality.’

‘B’Vek,’ Addut-Lamanu guffawed. ‘Where we gunna find a new religion at our age?’

Kurapli shrugged. ‘I’ve a few ideas.’

‘That’s quite enough blasphemy for one day,’ Saryoni sighed, rubbing her fingers at her temples. ‘I assume your plan is to set out before long.’

The wise woman nodded. ‘With all the extra people in camp, we have supplies for another night or two, then it’ll be time. Runners will set off tomorrow morning, see if we can’t gather the other tribes to our side.’

‘Wouldn’t be the strangest thing this week,’ Addut-Lamanu shrugged.

‘Well,’ Saryoni put her hands on her hips. ‘I’ll need to get back to the city.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Someone has to tell the poor soul they’re out of a job.’

Light seemed to flow through Kurapli’s face, her smile broad as a sunrise. ‘We’re throwing a feast tomorrow night. We’d be honoured if you stayed with us til then, Tholer.’

Saryoni felt her head swimming as the implications dawned on her one after the other, wave after wave.

‘Why not,’ she said. ‘What’s one more night before the end of the world?’


	14. Five Days in Vvardenfell: Three

**Fredas**

Jobasha woke to the sound of hammers and nails, for the third morning in a row. He rolled onto his side, curled into the thin blankets. The pale, bluish light of dawn filtered in through the shutters, leaving the small bunkroom cool and ghostly. Two mer, the only other occupants, lay wrapped around each other in the bed opposite, somehow immune to the noise outside.

Numbers on St Olm’s plaza had fluctuated - many of the oldest and youngest pilgrims had gone home after the holy day passed, some union members took their place - but the next morning ordinators had set up checkpoints at every bridge into the canton. Those who had gone home overnight could not return.

That morning had been a sombre one, as option by option was ruled out: teleportation between cantons was too risky, invisibility potions too expensive to be practical, and while bribing the guards was a time-honoured tradition, even the most venal ordinator would consider the present stakes too high.

Two days left before the ordinators’ arrival, and the plaza’s dozen or so bunkrooms, whose beds had once been in such high demand they were shared in shifts, lay mostly empty.

A few silver linings, though, Jobasha thought, pushing his heaped pile of blankets aside and dropping his pads onto the cold stone floor. In the common room, a large kettle simmered over the stove, filling the air with the scent of bitter herbs. A brave handful of healers had been keeping the comrades fed, provided one didn’t easily tire of soup. One of them, a middle-aged woman in the blue robes of the Temple, moved among the black-clad operatives. They seemed to pay her no mind.

Lightness filled his limbs as he stepped out into the plaza, sipping life-giving tea from a small clay cup. Though their numbers had dwindled, those who remained had been working day and night to make the square defensible. The Morag Tong operatives had taken the lead on that front, building a barricade through the only entrance into the plaza, filling much of the vestibule with upturned furniture from the luxuriously appointed Yngling Manor. Several were at work on a large, cloth sheet, spread out across the ground, pots of black paint scattered hither and yon.

To the rear of the plaza, beyond the great tree that dominated the space, a series of archers’ nests, one in the shadow of the statue of St Olms the Just, his marble head bowed, his hands pressed together at his heart.

Jobasha suddenly felt small, and far from home.

He spotted Reinhardt, stripped down to his undershirt, applying the finishing touches to a section of barricade, using a rather smaller hammer than the one he’d carried in a few nights earlier. He applied the nails with surprising precision, and the motley planks - a doorframe here, a countertop there - had hardly a hair’s breadth between them. Jobasha strolled over to greet him, dodging a few black-clad operatives carrying supplies.

‘Fine work,’ he nodded at the stack of masonry, towering over the young bookseller.

‘Jobasha!’ Reinhardt did not look away from his task. ‘You should have seen the ones we built in Mournhold, when Reinhardt was still young and strong of arm!’

Jobasha raised an eyebrow at this, but couldn’t deny the old thief’s movements were… unhurried, deliberate. ‘Out of curiosity, where is friend Reinhardt sleeping?’

Hammers. Nails. Hammers. Nails. Jobasha wondered how much of his hearing was selective.

‘You say you fought for the Thieves’ Guild in Mournhold?’ Jobasha took a long sip from his cup, swirled the grainy leaves.

‘The Thieves’ Guild, the Craftsmen’s Guild, the Free Press, whoever had strong hearts and a just cause! Ahh, those were the days!!’ He stretched his arms, the cords of muscle making the old scars warp and weave. ‘Almalexia herself could not walk our streets without permission!!’

Jobasha allowed himself a chuckle. ‘And now Vivec. This one pisses off living gods as a passtime, perhaps?’

‘_ Bahhhhahahaha!!!!! _Excellent, young Jobasha!!!’ He slapped him across the back, spilling the last of Jobasha’s tea across the barricade. It looked like it had been blessed. ‘Next we shall go to the Clockwork City, to tell Sotha Sil to eat shit!!!’

One of the Tong operatives pushed open the main door, holding a folded parchment. It had the seal of the Hall of Justice on it, and a small hole in the corner, where a nail had held it in place. They handed it to Jobasha, agitation in their eyes.

‘Looks like we’re still getting our post delivered,’ they grimaced. ‘I’ll be over at the nests if there’s anything we need to talk about.’ They gave Jobasha’s shoulder a firm squeeze as they moved on.

Jobasha drew a deep breath, his empty belly suddenly lurching. He ran a claw through the wax, neatly cutting it in two. Reinhardt loomed over his shoulder.

‘Good news, Jobasha?’ The hope in his voice broke the bookseller’s heart.

He scanned the few short lines again. His pulse quick and icy cold.

‘Jobasha doubts it very much, friend Reinhardt.’

_ Tomorrow night, after sundown, the Shrine to Stop the Moon. This is your last chance for words. Come alone or do not come. _

‘Doubts it very much indeed.’

_ Yrs Faithfully, _

_ Elam Andas, _

_ Captain of the Ordinators _.

* * *

Amélie LaCroix dusted off her travelling clothes.

As with everything else in her pack, the journey had not been kind to them, between days of hiking and long hours at sea. She held them to her nose and jerked back, a fierce scowl drawn across her face. Earlier in the day she had time to take them to the river, but _ no _…

She glanced over at the _ flowers _ she’d been able to gather on a hike around the ashlands that had eaten up most of the afternoon. A few smoky red fire ferns, bound together with black lichen. Trama root might have many uses in her laboratory, but they were hardly known for their aesthetics. Still, she thought, holding the bouquet up for inspection, it had a certain charm.

‘To a vampire, maybe,’ she said to the grim bundle.

She took another glance at herself in the polished surface of her blade. _ Dieux au paradis. _ How had Lena and the priest taken a week on the road on the chin, and here she was…

She shook herself. No one was hosting a gala dinner up here. And she wasn’t having high tea with the King’s third cousin. Just drinks with some… friends.

_ Friends _. Hm.

She took the bottle from her pack. The old one, Maeli, had given it to her in exchange for her haul of trama root. She popped the cork and sniffed. _ Puah _. She wondered if the elder had seen her coming a mile off.

She squared her shoulders and took a long breath. Stretched the cricks out of her neck. Took the flowers and the bottle and stepped into the night.

Full of stars. From one side of mundus to the other. LaCroix thought she’d seen a night sky before in Wayrest, and then Balmora put _ that _ to shame. But here, a hundred leagues from the nearest stone building, it was like the depths of the cosmos had taken up a brush and palette and told the universe how it really felt.

As she moved through the small crowds of the people, some of the younger ones lying flat on the earth, pointing and gabbing happily, some of the weight in her chest lifted. Around the corner, the Wise Woman’s yurt, which Kurapli had kindly offered them for the evening. She could hear laughter from inside: Milo’s low and rumbling, Ana-Amari’s raspy and bright. Oxton’s…

Gods below, she was a fool. She looked at the sad bundle of foliage in her hand. She made to throw it away.

A pair of young Dunmer jogged her elbow, laughing an apology in the people’s language. LaCroix instinctively gripped the flowers tight, rapped on the wooden frame of the yurt with the neck of the bottle.

‘Come in!’ Oxton’s voice, bright and clear. She pushed open the door.

Judging from the energy in the room, she had not been the only one to scavenge a drink or two.

‘_Eyyyyyyyy!!! _’ Oxton waved her arm in greeting, a small splash of something leaping from her cup onto the bedsheets. Milo was reclining on some cushions piled off to one side, strumming a tune on an ancient lute, the old khajiit sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed. The three of them were lit by a few dim magelights, presumably Milo’s, lending the room a soft pinkish hue. The Nerevarine looked at LaCroix’s left hand. Her eyes sparkled. ‘Are those for me??’

‘Yes,’ stated the assassin. ‘I, uh, they have certain... healing qualities.’

‘Is that right,’ Milo grinned. ‘The things you learn in alchemy school.’

LaCroix curled her lip at them.

‘There is a vase on the work table, spider,’ the den-mother pointed. ‘Personally, Ana-Amari is more interested in the bottle.’

‘B’Vek, old Maeli must be set for life between the four of us,’ Milo chuckled. LaCroix noticed a gaggle of empties around the legs of the bed. Looked like she spent too long flower-picking.

‘Had us worried you weren’t coming,’ Oxton grinned, more than a little colour in her cheeks. ‘Now it’s a proper party!’

LaCroix gave a tight smile. ‘I thought you might like some time to… catch up.’

Oxton and Milo shared a look. ‘On what?’ she smiled.

‘I don’t know. Thief things. Prophecy things.’

Oxton snorted a little. ‘Yeah, mate, when you’re not about we’re just ironing out our plans for world domination.’

LaCroix dropped herself to the floor, an uncomfortable distance from the rest of the group.

There was a small silence.

‘Would you like-’

‘What are you-’ The assassin and the priest spoke over each other.

‘You go first, girl,’ Milo insisted.

‘I was just going to ask what you had been playing. It was… nice.’

‘C’mover here and you can hear it better,’ they grinned, making space on the cushions. LaCroix stood up stiffly and placed herself closer to the priest. She suddenly felt incredibly thirsty.

‘It’s actually one I picked up in Mournhold,’ Milo nodded to Ana-Amari, who raised her cup in salute. ‘Can’t remember the name, honestly.’

‘_Beauty of Dawn _,’ the old thief interjected. ‘Ana-Amari sang it many times with her comrades.’

‘Oh yeah? Remember the words?’

She gave a slightly wobbly hiss of derision. ‘The words, the key, the descant, and every sorry bastard in the Winged Guar who emptied their guts before the last verse.’ She clicked her claws together. ‘Actually, fuck it, give that thing here.’

Milo gave a look of mock-submission as they handed the lute across the bed. Ana-Amari gave a few experimental plucks and strums, fiddled with the keys at the head of the lute. ‘This one has no ear at all,’ she tutted, then cleared her throat. LaCroix glanced across at Oxton. She looked beside herself with glee, the pain of the past few days simply… elsewhere. She noticed LaCroix staring, gave her a pointed finger and a wink.

The assassin snapped her attention back to the old khajiit and hoped the colourful lighting hid the burning she felt round her ears.

In a surprisingly delicate alto, Ana-Amari began:

_ Darkness strives to blind the strong _ _   
_ _ but faith will guide our swords _ _   
_ _ loyal hearts we'll stand as one _ _   
_ _ and fight with shields of hope _

Milo wrapped a big arm around the assassin, rubbing warmth into her far shoulder. LaCroix found herself leaning into it once more.

_ These are days and nights of venom and blood _ _   
_ _ heroes will rise as the anchors fall _

LaCroix chanced another look toward Oxton. Her eyes were closed, a small furrow on her brow as she swayed gently with the melody.

_ Brave the strife, reclaim every soul _ _   
_ _ that belongs to the Beauty of Dawn. _

Ana-Amari played a short riff on the melody, picking out the notes of the final chord, and let them hang in the air. The tent was utterly still.

‘Dunno ‘bout you lot,’ said Milo, ‘but I’m ready to march into some doomed fucking scenarios.’

Ana-Amari barked a laugh. ‘_That _ is the spirit.’

LaCroix pulled her knees up to her chest. ‘You had many battles in Mournhold?’

The old thief smiled as she handed the lute back to Milo, who re-tuned it to their liking. ‘None this one would have heard of, but noble ones nonetheless. This was how Ana-Amari met Reinhardt, actually.’

‘Ooh!’ Oxton bounced suddenly to life. ‘I think it’s _ storytiiiime _,’ she sing-songed.

‘Tss, foolish kitten. But,’ she shrugged, ‘granny is feeling generous, so perhaps you have been good enough for a yarn or two.’

‘_Good_? Mate,’ Oxton guffawed, ‘Only the friggin’ _chosen_ _one_ over here.’

‘Not sure that’s in the spirit of things,’ Milo suggested, picking out the first notes of something new.

‘No, no, this is fine,’ Ana-Amari held up her hands. ‘If the kitten wants to use her one-time-only privilege to hear her grandmother’s tales, who is Ana-Amari to stop her?’

‘Now, hang on-’

‘_It all began _ many moons ago, when Ana-Amari was the most wanted thief in all of the City of Light. In more ways than one,’ she raised an eyebrow at LaCroix, obviously relishing the stage. ‘Your den-mother was like you, kitten, always running into danger, and coming out second best,’ she lifted her eye-patch to reveal an old, old scar, faded to a soft pink across her fur.

‘You had some aunties there, looking after Fareeha?’ Milo asked.

‘Sure,’ Ana-Amari sighed, ‘far kinder than your granny deserved.’

‘Hold on, you’ve got a _ kid _?’ Oxton’s face was a picture.

Ana-Amari chuckled, ‘Ahh, kitten was asleep, wasn’t she. One story at a time, I think.’ Oxton made a disgusted noise but allowed her to continue. ‘So. You spend enough time in certain circles, the same faces turn up again and again. Some for a short time, some for a long time. So when a new face arrives, it is unwise to quickly become attached. Particularly to overgrown nordlings with a saviour complex.’

‘What do you mean?’ LaCroix tilted her head. The rice wine was… potent. She could feel certain mental functions unwinding, for the first time in weeks.

‘Ehh…’ Ana-Amari waved a hand dismissively. ‘There are those who fight for glory, and not justice. They can be useful, but tend to be short-sighted, tire easily, think only of himself. This is what I assumed of Reinhardt.

‘He got himself a job as a barkeeper at the Winged Guar, to get close to the _ revolutionaries _, khajiit thinks.’ She said the word with a smirk. ‘A large boy from a small town, with huge dreams. But then…’ she got a far-off look. ‘The ordinators in Mournhold, they are not like their brethren on the island. They are vicious, relentless, and hold true power, even in the throneroom of King Helseth. So when the hammer came down, Ana-Amari had to flee, to places a small girl cannot go. Had she stayed, they both would have fallen to the golden swords.’

‘And Reinhardt agreed to look after her?’ Oxton’s eyes were wide.

‘Agreed? _ Demanded! _ One evening he comes round to the safehouse, warhammer like a tree on his back, and the _ fool _,’ she allowed herself a laugh, ‘had acquired a papoose. Stomping around Godsreach like the realm’s largest wet nurse. Ana-Amari did not know whether to laugh or cry. We talked for a long time, and den-mother said she would be back in a week, once things simmer.’

Milo tutted. ‘This was during the purges, right? I know how this one ends.’

Ana-Amari nodded through another swig of wine. ‘Mhm. One week becomes six moons. Den-mother sneaks in through the sewers. All manner of beasts down there. Finds Reinhardt’s apartment. Climbs the outer wall, and in through the window. Finds dear Fareeha in a bed made from old barrels and shipping boxes. And there is a voice, _ one more step and it is your last_.’

‘Ha!’ Oxton nodded to the other listeners. ‘He _ does _sound like that.’

‘Bless you, kitten. Anyhow. Den-mother removes her hood, _ very _ dashingly,’ she swished her hair with gusto, ‘and says she is bound for Morrowind, to join the guild there. And Reinhardt, who looks like he has not slept for eight hours straight in six months, says we will not get out without a bodyguard, and without a second thought, packs up his things and leaves his life behind.’ She took another slug of her drink. ‘He was right. We would not have.’

‘So,’ LaCroix began, ‘you were not… _ together _ at this point.’

Ana-Amari cackled. ‘Gods below, we hardly knew each other. But… if you want to know who truly matters to you, who is worthy of you, simply proceed to the lowest possible moment of your life. See who sticks around.’

She exhaled deeply, the weight of her story finally bearing down. Milo continued playing their lute, low and gentle in the dim pink light of the tent.

‘So,’ Oxton nodded, ‘wanna hear about the time I shagged a duchess and nicked her jewels?’

‘Oh my _ gods_,’ LaCroix buried her face in her hands.

‘Fuck me running,’ Milo shook their head.

‘Ah, come onnnn! I had to escape out a castle window in the buff!’

Ana-Amari threw a chunk of scuttle at her head.

‘_Gahh! _ I’m the Nerevarine, you gotta be _ nice _ to me!!’

‘That ship has sailed, kitten.’

She told the story anyway. I am sorry to say, my friend, that it is quite unrepeatable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to sing along with Ana-Amari, you can! Beauty of Dawn is on the Elder Scrolls Online soundtrack, right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thzFnhPaNWA


	15. Five Days in Vvardenfell: Four

**Loredas**

In the small hours of the morning, Oxton had finally succumbed either to exhaustion, intoxication, or a merry mixture of both. She snored gently on the campbed, curled into her den-mother’s side, who had also passed out, upright against the headboard.

Milo had kept playing, absently picking out one tune after another. LaCroix rested her head on their knee.

‘You are not tired?’ she asked.

They smiled down at her. ‘Oh yeah. But I don’t sleep much. Old habit. What’s your excuse?’

She shrugged. ‘Similar. I have not slept… unmedicated in some time.’

‘Hmm,’ Milo continued strumming, ‘that’s rough. I’ve got something in my pack if-’

LaCroix waved a hand. ‘No, no. Thank you.’ She glanced across at the sleeping Oxton. ‘I’m trying to quit.’

‘Oh yeah? Good for you, mate.’ They ruffled her hair.

‘Hey! Ne pas toucher.’ She held her hands above her head in defence.

‘Alright, alright,’ they grinned. ‘Any reason for the big change?’

She looked at the roof of the yurt for a long time, thought of all the stars beyond the fabric, circling each other for ever.

‘I suppose I have been thinking of the future. For a long time I simply… could not imagine my place in it.’

‘That’s cool. Where do you place yourself now?’

She pouted a little in thought. ‘I do not know, not for sure. But I want to find out.’

Milo played on, a tidy little riff punctuating the melody. ‘Well,’ they sighed, ‘I figure if you know what you want, there’s no reason not to go out and get her.’

‘Eh?’

The priest raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Your future, mate. Go get it.’

LaCroix tutted. ‘You think you are very clever.’

‘Someone should,’ they shrugged.

LaCroix hummed. ‘I am going to close my eyes. Just move me if it gets uncomfortable.’

‘Sure thing, pal. Want me to stop playing?’

The assassin shook her head. ‘It is nice.’

The sun rose over the Urshilaku camp, motionless but for a priest’s gentle strumming, and a figure walking the beach in the pale blue light of dawn.

* * *

There was movement in the tent.

Oxton blinked her eyes open, which was her first mistake. She tried in vain to pull the blankets over her face, but they were held in place by her den-mother, now curled in a ball at her feet. With the last of her strength, she expressed her dismay to the room. _ This is how I die, then _, she thought.

‘Oh good, you are awake.’

Oxton squinched one eye closed and lifted her head off the mattress. LaCroix had her fighting leathers on and was performing some kind of aerobics.

‘Mate, if you brought a bottle of water to the party we’re not friends any more.’

‘I have had worse nights.’ She lifted her right knee to her chest, before kicking it out behind her, catching it in her right hand and leaning effortlessly forward.

‘I feel peaky just watching you, how are you like this.’

‘Years of practice.’

‘Walked into that. Where’s Milo?’

‘I have not seen them, they were gone when I awoke and they are not in our tent.’

‘When I’m king, I’ll wake up one morning without a mystery to solve. This I pledge.’

A low growl from the bed. ‘The kittens will leave or the kittens will shut up or the kittens will die.’

LaCroix transitioned into a low lunge. ‘I am a kitten too?’

‘Not any more, spider.’

‘Alas.’

‘_Right _, I’m up, I’m up.’ Oxton made an utterly wretched sound as she wrenched herself upright. She picked up a cup of water from a low table and took a swig.

LaCroix reached out a hand in warning. ‘That is not-’

Oxton spat it back into the cup. ‘Yep. Nope. Tell Kurapli it’s over, the Dagoths’ve won.’

‘_Out _,’ the old thief hissed. They both obliged.

The cool morning air was like a slap in the face. Oxton’s first breath of it was like a icy drink of water, and she was aware she must have smelt like a butcher’s armpit.

She turned groggily toward her fellow traveller. ‘I’ve got an idea.’

‘I’ve got a better one. Here,’ she handed Oxton her silver blade, and what looked like a new scabbard. ‘We have a mission.’

The young thief frowned at the weapon as if trying to will it out of existence. ‘Are we hunting for bacon and eggs, by any chance.’

LaCroix stretched her arms above her head, saluting the morning sun. She smirked a little. ‘Depends how big the rats are.’ Oxton squinted at her, miserably. ‘I asked the ashlanders if they had any jobs needed doing and apparently one of the local tombs has an infestation.’

‘This is a lot to take in.’ Oxton massaged her brow. ‘Never been somewhere with a ‘local tomb’. Never met someone who did pest control as a hangover cure.’

‘Trust me, Lena.’ She gave her a playful jab on the arm. Oxton whined forlornly. ‘Better than hot tea and a day in bed.’

‘I’m only coming cause granny’d kill me if I went back.’

‘I will take it.’

* * *

The tomb was about a half hour walk along the coast. Oxton absorbed what she could as LaCroix filled the air with information: the settled Dunmer built them on traditional sites, even if the family had moved hundreds of miles away, or if hundreds of years had passed since their last contact with the place. The thief took slow, heavy breaths and tried not to think of wine.

Oxton felt thoroughly rejuvenated after her second vomit break, however, and even started to enjoy her little crash course on ashlander culture. The rush and hush of the waves breaking on the shore was soothing, and, for the time being, there was nothing else on the agenda. Let tomorrow worry about tomorrow.

‘Here, how do you know so much about this stuff? I’m s’posed to be the big ashlander hero and I don’t know piss all.’

‘Well, you have been unconscious for much of your time as Nerevarine,’ the assassin shrugged. ‘But personally? I use a secret and ancient technique known as _ asking people_.’

‘Not one day back from the dead and all I get is sass.’

‘I am simply ensuring the power does not go to your head.’

‘So thoughtful. Maybe I’ll keep you on as a trusted advisor.’

Oxton readied herself for a smart rejoinder that never came. The tide, two pairs of footsteps crunching the sand, cliff racers in the distance.

‘Looks like the place.’

Around the headland, an arched doorway, overgrown with fine seagrass, the doorway partly blocked by drifted sand. Engraved in Aldmeris above the door was ‘Llando’. The family was either long gone, long dead, or both.

‘The people sometimes use this place for cold storage.’ LaCroix explained, picking her way through the crumbled masonry of what might have been a small courtyard. ‘The wise woman asked me - us - to make sure the rats haven’t done too much damage. During the handover of power no one has been down here in weeks.’

‘Jolly good. Just in, fuck up some rats, home for lunch.’

‘Try not to… _ fuck them up _ too much. The meat is still good, if you cook it slowly with the right spices.’

‘When did this become a thing? Did I miss a big meeting when they covered rat cuisine?’

‘Everyone knows this. Now,’ she squatted down outside the door, ‘if we go in too hot, we scare them off, but don’t get rid of them permanently.’ There was an edge to how she said that last word that gave Oxton a little chill. How was she making grunt work exciting? ‘So. I will go in first. You have some kind of muffle spell?’

‘Got it, chief.’

‘Good, that will help. If we need to talk,’ _ use sign_, she flashed her hands.

_ Okay, princess_.

LaCroix grimaced. ‘Absolutely not.’

_ Queen? _

‘That is worse.’

‘That’s all the royalty signs I know,’ Oxton sighed.

‘Thank the gods. Now, drop the muffle spell, and,’ _ follow me_.

Oxton closed her eyes and whispered a few words into her hand. A pale green orb bloomed around the two adventurers, and Oxton released a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. Magic still works with one hand. LaCroix clicked her fingers experimentally. Silence. Thumbs up.

The assassin pulled open the door to a long staircase, delving twenty, thirty feet down into the cold earth. The stone walls on either side were matted with wet sand, old flecks of seaweed, and the bones of small creatures speckled the steps. She called Oxton’s attention to a large, furry shape at the foot of the stairs, scrabbling at the doorframe into the tomb proper.

Oxton nodded, waited for movement.

Turned back to her partner, who raised her eyebrow expectantly.

_ Me? _

_ Who else? _

Oxton frowned at her warily, but felt out her footing, eyed up her quarry. She’d had plenty of target practice in her time, between the alleyways and sewers of one city and the next. Only thing changed was the scenery. She felt a hand on her lower back, holding her steady.

She exhaled, and fired.

A gout of flame a foot wide erupted from her open palm, pushing a rush of air backwards that knocked both thief and assassin on their backsides. In perfect silence, they watched in horror as the ball engulfed the unsuspecting creature in the depths, blowing the nearby door clean off its hinges.

Had it been possible, it is unlikely either would have spoken.

_ You can do fire? _

Oxton looked at her, and very slowly shook her head. LaCroix thought for a moment.

_ What else can’t you do? _

The thief rolled her eyes, pushed unsteadily to her feet. LaCroix patted the sand off her leathers as she stood, looking delighted with herself. She brushed past Oxton to take point as they moved on down the stairs. Salty water dripped from the low ceiling in perfect silence.

Oxton saw something change in her partner’s body language as she reached the ruined doorframe. With her free hand she waved Oxton to stop. The thief dropped to a crouch and shimmied up to the assassin’s side.

It looked a lot like someone had beaten them to the extermination.

At least a dozen carcasses scattered around the floor of the long inner chamber. The urns lining the walls were toppled or smashed, and at the far end, in front of another door, was a perfect circle of charred earth, the stone floor cracked and concave beneath it.

LaCroix scanned the room and nodded. She crouched down alongside Oxton, beside one of the rats. It was extremely dead.

_ Killed by fire_, she signed. _ Then, eaten_. She pointed at the floor.

_ No blood? _ Oxton asked. 

LaCroix nodded. _ Look_, she pointed at the ribcage. The bones had large gnaw marks, but part of the ribs had melted away, the tips dripping toward the floor like ancient candles. _ Only one thing does this_.

_ What? _

_ I don’t know the sign_. The assassin made her arms into a long, snapping maw, opened her mouth into a toothy snarl.

_ Adorable_.

_ Fuck you_.

_ Wait. You think a daedroth did this? _

_ Yes. _ She tested out the new sign. _ Daedroth. _

_ That’s very bad. I fought a daedroth once. Bad time. _

_ When did you fight a daedroth_. LaCroix looked sceptical, and placed heavy emphasis on the ‘you’.

Oxton scratched her jaw. _ In a dream. _ She thought for a second. _ But it was very realistic. _

Though LaCroix made no signs, she communicated her feelings perfectly.

_ Okay _ . Oxton held up her hand. _ Place looks empty. Let’s go. _

_ We should check the last room, to make sure_. _ These rats are very old. _

Oxton looked again. A fine layer of dust had settled on the urns, and the carcasses were little more than bones. Weeks, at least, maybe months since anyone had disturbed the place. LaCroix was signalling her from the next door.

As she joined her, the assassin pointed to a trap mechanism. Oxton shrugged apologetically. _ No tools_.

_ Fuck_.

_ I should teach you more swears_.

_ We need to check in there_.

_ Okay, I’ll zap in and zap out, then we go_.

LaCroix frowned and quizzically repeated the sign for zap.

Oxton made a little explosion with her hand, then moved her hand to a different spot, and made another explosion.

LaCroix mouthed ‘ah’, and gave a thumbs up.

Oxton conjured arcane symbols in her hand, and disappeared in a burst of lilac.

Many illusionists will tell you that while a muffle spell in a tight spot is a literal life-saver, it has certain logistical drawbacks. Namely: while your foe cannot hear you, nor can you hear them; and, as Oxton was beginning to realise, they can certainly smell you.

The daedroth in the next chamber looked like it was none too pleased to be trapped in a cold room with no food for several weeks. It looked _ very _hungry.

Without drawing breath, Oxton conjured those symbols again and blinked back the way she came.

LaCroix barely had time to register that she was being hauled away by one sleeve when the door suddenly bent inwards, the trap unleashing a bolt of magical energy at the culprit. Through the caved-in wood, the assassin saw teeth, teeth, teeth.

They ran as the floor rumbled beneath them from the cry of pain and fury that finally burst the muffle spell. They rounded the corner into the stairway as poisonbloom exploded against the far wall, the surface sizzling as it corroded.

They scrambled up the stairs two at a time. Relishing her returned voice, LaCroix yelled, ‘_Outside, flank position!_’

‘Right!’ As she burst into daylight, Oxton blinked to a spot above the entryway, drew her silver dagger. LaCroix ran to a spot a good twenty yards in front of the outer door, nodding to the thief. _ Ready_.

The creature hissed as it stepped into daylight for the first time in months, shielding its eyes with a hefty, scaly arm for a long moment. Oxton waited, waited for it to step into position. It finally focused on LaCroix, her sword drawn, poised and ready.

It screamed at her, a sound like liquid fire and grinding stone. The assassin was unmoved, readied a tiny fireball in her off-hand. The creature lurched forward, out onto the sand.

Oxton leapt.

With a sickening crunch of bone and meat, her dagger found its mark, right between the shoulder blades. The daedroth screeched again, the edges of its voice breaking in desperation, flailing around trying to find the source of the pain. Oxton was thrown off, landing heavily on her side. She spun round to see death approaching, its maw dripping with blood and murder in its reptilian eyes. On instinct, she blinked away, just as the beast bit down at nothing but sand.

It cried out again, turning toward its only visible prey. LaCroix immediately cast her fireball, knocking the daedroth off its stride, but only for a second as it fell into a dead sprint, headed straight for her.

LaCroix dug her feet in the sand and braced, blade poised, trying to choke down her fear as death embodied bore down on her, claws outstretched. It leapt through the air.

A blinding light exploded across LaCroix’s vision, knocking her flat onto the sand, a vicious ringing in her ears. She felt the heavy arm of the daedroth on her neck, and all conscious thought ceased.

A second later, she could hear the low susurrous of the tide, the distant yell of gulls.

She opened her eyes and angrily brushed away the charred, dismembered arm of the daedroth. Several feet away, the beast’s smouldering skull had come to rest, a huge, blazing sword lodged through one eye. It dissipated like snow in water, the faint sulphuric smell of oblivion in the air.

Against the wall of smoke, Oxton’s silhouette materialised. She strode through it, shoulders set, and offered LaCroix her hand.

Her eyes were blank, and glowed with ghostly light. Oxton was reaching her left arm toward her, the phantom limb shimmering in the pale blue of morning. When she took it, it felt as real as her own, and her hair crackled as magical energy surged through the translucent skin.

It bore her weight as she rose to her feet. There was a faint smile on Oxton’s lips that LaCroix had never seen before, and, in a crisp Dunmer accent, came the words:

‘_I am glad to see _ ,’ they echoed as if from some distant, empty place, ‘ _ that I have friends _.’

The light flickered then, like a candle before an open doorway, and vanished. Oxton swayed on her feet, then collapsed forward into LaCroix’s arms. The assassin stood there a moment, stunned, as the thief seemed to rouse herself, emitting the sound of a dozen hangovers blossoming in unison.

‘Rancid dick of Arkay,’ she croaked. She looked at the arms holding her, then the owner of those arms.

‘Did we win?’ She gave a weak half-smile.

LaCroix just looked down at her, eyes wide, jaw hanging.

‘What?’

* * *

LaCroix did her best to explain what had happened on the return journey. Oxton confessed that it had happened before, just once, though she could hardly explain more than what LaCroix had already guessed.

Back at the village, a small army of hunters were carrying great slabs of meat back from the grazelands: the feast was going to be big, historic, a last celebration before a march into the unknown. Oxton felt her stomach drop as she remembered her role in the story. Something about the fate of a people resting on your dreams disagreed with her.

Their report to the Wise Woman was similarly unenlightening. She had listened intently, then spread her hands. It was certainly fascinating, she’d agreed, but at best it only confirmed what they already knew. If it were something Oxton could control, the elders might know how to train her; perhaps something similar had happened to Peakstar. As things stood, the best they could do is keep her safe and healthy. She slapped the pair of them on the shoulders, and recommended they enjoy the feast that night. A good time to do what you love, she’d called to them as they left the yurt, a half-smile on her lips.

LaCroix had been to many banquets in her youth, and had, in rare acts of mischief, sneaked into the serving quarters. The intensity of manpower required to feed a few dozen noble hangers-on had left a lasting impression on her. Somehow, the people had found a way to feed five hundred souls without breaking a sweat. Dozens of huddles of people around a series of small fires, some circulating with huge carafes of something sweet and potent, the melodies of several lutes blending into a great confusion of song. She took her shalk skewer and looked for her friends. Ana-Amari was mingling with a group of elders, weaving some kind of a yarn, judging by the expansive gestures. Milo was sitting with a lutist, watching her hands as she played and attempting to do likewise. They sounded good.

No sign of Oxton, only strangers all around her, and her cup finally empty. She took a last bite of her skewer, and tossed the scrap of wood into the growling flames. Whatever she’d been drinking had been delicious, considering its potency, but her solitude amid the noise and chaos had only left her morose, and she felt her nerves biting with worry.

She doubted she would get much sleep in the tent, but at the very least she could close a door behind her. She picked herself off the rug and headed for home.

She exhaled deeply as the doorflap slapped shut behind her, the tent’s tight-woven fabric not letting even a scrap of starlight inside.

So it was a bit of a surprise when she heard, ‘Amé? That you?’

_ Oh _. She nodded, then caught herself. Perfect drunken logic. She tossed a tiny magelight into the air, casting the tent into warm, dim tones. Oxton was sitting on her bedroll, legs folded, her weapons and gear lain on the ground in front of her. LaCroix’s pack was where she’d left it, apparently untouched. ‘Hello, Lena,’ she sighed. ‘How’d you know?’

The thief shrugged, grinned. ‘No offense, mate, but you don’t strike me as the party type. Care to join me?’

‘None taken. And that _ is _ my bedroll, so I should really be offering it to you.’

‘I gladly accept. The wise woman’s yurt is like, party central tonight, so...’ Even in the half-light, her smile was brilliant. Something seemed off, though. LaCroix tried to kick her rational mind into gear as she sank to the ground beside her.

‘Something seems off,’ she managed. _ Superb, LaCroix _, she thought.

Oxton bobbed her head noncommittally. ‘How’s it supposed to feel when all your options involve staring death right in the mug?’ Her smile was tighter, the lines beneath her eyes a little deeper.

‘In my experience? Quite bad.’ _ There should be a job for handling people’s emotions, and you should do that job. _LaCroix tried to shake the bitter voice out of her head.

Oxton turned to her, a curious look on her face. ‘Y’know,’ the concern on her face was plain, even to LaCroix’s slightly addled mind, ‘we never really talked about what we saw in the cave.’

‘We did not.’

‘Do you want to?’

A moment’s thought. ‘No.’

‘It might help-’

‘It would not,’ she stated, a little sharper than intended.

Oxton studied her knees. ‘Sorry, mate. Not my business.’

The assassin breathed through her nose. ‘It is fine. I am… I should not have snapped at you.’

The thief slapped her leg and pushed herself upright. ‘I should get going, anyway, didn’t mean to be…’ she gestured vaguely, ‘in your space.’

LaCroix protested a little as Oxton moved toward the door. ‘Stay,’ she said at last, her voice low and steady. ‘Please.’

Oxton turned back, her hand still resting on the fabric of the door. ‘I ain’t gunna annoy you?’

The small laugh that escaped her felt suspiciously like a sob. She shook herself, pushed the heel of her palm across her eye. ‘You can if you like,’ she smiled.

Oxton let the fabric fall, scooted across the tent and threw her arm around the assassin, resting her head on her shoulder, squeezing her tight. LaCroix was startled at the sudden contact, but gently closed her arms around the thief. Thought of the voice from earlier that day. _ I’m glad to see… _

Realised she’d been holding on a little too long. Let her go with a heavy sigh.

‘Kinda been through the shitter, eh?’ Oxton sat back on her knees.

She raised an eyebrow. ‘I think you have come off worse.’

Oxton chuckled, shrugged. ‘Ain’t a competition, Amé.’

The sound of music and revelry from outside.

‘I-’

‘Y’know-’

‘Sorry-’

‘S’alright! You go first, mate.’

LaCroix closed her eyes and breathed. _ You had your chance to let her go, idiot _ . ‘So. When you… _ found _ me, back in Balmora.’ _ Hope you enjoyed having a ‘friend’ _. ‘I was in a bad way.’

She waited for a clever response that never came. She opened her eyes. Oxton was... listening. ‘Go on.’ Scooted over to sit beside her. ‘I’m here.’ She took Amélie’s hand and held it.

She squeezed back, rubbed something out of her eye. ‘When we first met, I told you I was taking care of my father’s affairs. That was… obviously a lie,’ Oxton smiled a little at her. ‘The truth is I stole as much as I could get out of there, enough to start a new life, but not enough to…’ The next sigh was ragged. ‘When you stole those diamonds…’ she somehow laughed at the memory, the strange road it had sent her down, ‘they were the most valuable thing I had left.’

‘Shit. Sorry.’ She looked bashful. ‘It was granny’s idea.’

‘Oh? We shall have words.’ She gave a sly grin. ‘Honestly, though? It was a necessary shock to the system. The truth is,’ she swallowed drily, looked up to the roof of the tent, shoulders low. ‘I had been medicating for quite some time, heavier and heavier. Just to forget it all. What I once had. What I’d… thrown away.’

Oxton ran her thumb across LaCroix’s knuckles. ‘I saw the same thing you did, pal. Trash _ deserves _to get thrown away. Yeah? You’re…’ she rubbed her cheek on the assassin’s shoulder. ‘You’re a lot fucking braver than I am.’

‘Pffft!’ The noise startled Oxton a little, lifting her back upright. ‘You literally saved my life, twice!’ The assassin turned and looked her in the eyes, so close she could smell her hair, feel her breath on her skin. Her throat went suddenly dry.

‘Yeah, well,’ Oxton’s eyes flicked to her mouth and back, a little smirk playing across her lips as she lifted her hand to LaCroix’s cheek. ‘Maybe I like you.’

For a second, everything in the assassin’s mind went perfectly still, utterly silent, as the thief’s lips rose to meet hers, gentle, calm, deliberate. A wave of heat washed through her core as she breathed into the contact, returning the kiss, moving her hand to brush along Oxton’s jaw.

After a long second, their lips parted, and Oxton leaned her forehead against LaCroix’s, hand clenched around her collar, eyes squeezed shut. She opened them, heavy lidded and entirely focused, and the assassin felt something tighten in her chest.

The thief tapped a finger on her chin, squinting as if solving a riddle. ‘You’re… drunk.’

LaCroix blinked, once. The smell of sweet, potent brew on her breath. _ Words, fool, use them _ . ‘I… well…’ _ Ah, bravo. Vive l’amour. _

‘Hmm,’ she nodded. ‘Listen,’ Oxton straightened the assassin’s collar, ‘I’m gunna stay in my own bunk tonight. And, if you want to… talk,’ she raised her eyebrows, ‘when you’re sober, you know where to find me.’

She gathered her tools, pushed to her feet, and stepped lightly to the door.

‘I will,’ LaCroix forced herself to say, as Oxton reached the door.

The thief beamed, and for a second LaCroix saw the cocky, reckless woman she’d first met in Balmora. ‘Good,’ she said, and stepped out into the night.

LaCroix stared at the woven fabric for a moment, strained to hear the thief’s footsteps as they were immediately lost in the crowd. Touched her fingers to her lips. Flopped onto her back, heavily, letting all the breath escape her at once.

_ Merde_. The magelight flickered, and died. _ Putain de fucking merde_, she smiled at the ceiling.

* * *

Rain had started to fall as Jobasha reached the bridge from the St Olm’s canton to the Temple. The guards posted there had clearly been tipped off to the meeting, and waved him through with a hand touched to heart in salute. Jobasha pulled his hood up around his ears and stalked across.

The High Fane loomed over the holy canton, the grand entrances to the Halls of Wisdom and Justice set beneath the beating heart of the Temple in Vvardenfell. The truly subtle message did not evade keen-minded Jobasha. He kept moving. This conversation might be the most significant of his life, but it need not be a long one.

On either side of the central compound were huge statues of the god-king themself, Vivec. In one, the god’s hands were raised in a gesture of piety, the god’s dual natures in perfect balance. In the other, they stood astride a flailing beast, stricken by a divine spear. It was on this side of the canton that Elam Andas, captain of the ordinators, had chosen to meet. The square was broad, open, and in full view of the great moon Baar Dau itself, latterly dubbed the Ministry of Truth. Jobasha spotted a figure in the middle of the square, standing with their hands behind their back, studying a small shrine. As the rain grew heavier, Jobasha noticed that the figure was in the middle of a large, round patch of dry ground, where the Ministry had blocked out the rain. Jobasha felt like he was stepping into a magic circle.

‘Andas?’ he called.

‘Jobasha!’ Andas replied over his shoulder. ‘Do join me.’

Jobasha held out a paw for rain, but felt none. He shook the loose water out of his cloak as he joined the captain beside the shrine. ‘A fine rendez-vous.’

‘Indeed. The only safe place in Vivec.’ He smiled as if there were many who found that amusing.

‘You have words for khajiit?’

Andas nodded, but his smile did not fade, and his voice remained bright. ‘I don’t suppose an outlander like yourself would know much about the trials of Lord Vivec.’

‘Certainly,’ Jobasha replied, just as brightly. ‘It is not as though _ The Pilgrim’s Path _ is the most popular book in the city, sales of which alone keep Jobasha in fine silks.’

Andas looked sidelong at his companion, studying him. ‘You are smaller than I expected.’

‘You are precisely what Jobasha expected. As he is sure your spies have told you, khajiit is very busy, so if you have nothing more-’

‘Tell me, then, Jobasha. The story of this shrine. The Shrine of Daring. The Shrine-’

‘To Stop the Moon, yes. A fine tale. The Lord of Chaos, Sheogorath, convinces a moon to cast itself down and destroy Vivec City, only for the power and courage of Vivec to freeze it in place. _ That _ place,’ he pointed a claw at the floating penitentiary, ‘specifically.’

‘A _ tale _, you say.’ Andas’ face was stony. ‘When you can plainly see it is no such thing.’

‘Jobasha sees nothing stranger than the wizard towers of the Telvanni, or the Under-Skar district of Ald’ruhn. Are these things also Vivec’s doing?’

‘A philosopher. Well.’ He turned to face the bookseller, a good half a head taller. Jobasha was suddenly aware of how exposed he was, how much faith he was placing in the hands of one of the city’s most powerful men. Andas gave a little smile. ‘Let me pose you a little thought experiment. Suppose Lord Vivec had decided _ not _ to stop the moon. Many would have died. And yet, the moon cast itself upon the city due to the wickedness of its people. Some of whom surely deserved the justice the god-poet impeded, no? Were they wrong, then, to prevent what was just?’

Jobasha kept his breath even. Andas was far from his first encounter with the high and mighty.

‘I ask myself this often,’ the captain continued, pacing a little, speaking with his hands. ‘And I have reached this conclusion: the moon has not _ stopped_.’

He turned to Jobasha. Some response was expected.

‘You think it is merely… waiting.’

‘_Good! _’ He extended the word, as if addressing a child, or a faithful hound. ‘Waiting. Giving the people the opportunity to change. To do the right thing. For Vivec embodies wisdom, daring, cunning, humility, but also justice. I, too, live by these principles.’

‘Evidently, your grace.’

His eyes narrowed slightly, but his smile remained. ‘You think you are clever. Perhaps you are. But this brings me to the second part of our lesson.’

The captain picked up one of the offerings on the shrine, a coda flower. A dull green swamp plant in the day, but on dark nights such as this one, it glowed like a lantern, a ghostly light in the gloom. Andas held it above his head for a second, then tossed it high in the air.

At the very peak of its arc, it was neatly pierced by an arrow, which pinned it to a wall far behind Jobasha’s head. The bookseller didn’t need training in ballistics to guess its origin. Andas’ expression was pleasant, calm.

He walked very close to Jobasha. The sickly light from the shrine’s flowers cast angular shadows across his face, like the aspects of a hard gem. ‘All good stories are… _ malleable_, Jobasha. At times I imagine myself as Vivec, the guardian of the faithful. Others, I remember that I, too, live in the holy city, and must consider myself sinful, like them. But now?’

He leaned very close to the bookseller, who hardly seemed to be breathing.

‘Now, I am Baar Dau, Jobasha. I am the holy fury of a falling star. And you,’ he almost spat the word, ‘have one opportunity to be like Lord Vivec, and to save your people from certain damnation.’ He drew himself up to full height, all humour leached from his face. ‘You have until this time tomorrow to do the right thing.’

Andas watched the bookseller closely. Jobasha’s hands were visibly shaking as he gave a low bow, raised his hood above his ears, and fled into the night without a word.

Andas eyed him as he faded into the shadows. Gave a signal to his snipers on Baar Dau to stand down, and strolled easily back to his chambers.

Come the light of day, his agents would find two unconscious archers, gagged and bound on the balcony of the Ministry of Truth, and a huge cloth banner draped beneath the great moon of Vivec. Fluttering in the wind, its message stood, visible from every canton in the city, for hours until its hasty removal:

_ FREE ST OLMS. _

_ FREE VIVEC CITY. _

_ THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING. _


	16. Five Days in Vvardenfell: Five

**Sundas**

Morning came altogether too quickly for Tholer Saryoni.

She pushed open the door to her tent, found Addut-Lamanu snoring extravagantly on the rug outside, sleeping elders scattered around her like a basket of cats. She blinked into the sunlight. Surveyed the scene. Maybe her last day among the people. Maybe the people’s last day in the ashlands.

She took a breath and allowed that thought to pass her by. So much still depended on her. Her temples throbbed, and she was not relishing the prospect of long-distance teleportation. Needs must when the devil drives, however.

She found a clay jar, which, on careful inspection, contained fresh water, and poured herself a long draft. She felt the coolness work its way through her system, almost reaching her fingertips, like a thirsty houseplant. Others among the people followed suit, blooming groggily into the sunlight.

Some distance away, she spotted one of the outlanders, the tall, high-born one, emerging from a tent. She looked like she’d been through the wringer twice over. Judging by the ruckus from the wise woman’s yurt two nights ago, perhaps she had. Her foul demeanour seemed to lift, suddenly, as something caught her eye on the far side of camp. She raised a hand, halfway, a bashful look crossing her face, before retrieving it and scampering back inside. Saryoni tracked where her gaze had fallen.

The young Nerevarine, emerging from the wise woman’s yurt, somewhat fresher, though her eyes were still sallow from long days of sickness, the unremitting shocks she’d endured of late. Which she’d overcome with supernatural speed.

_ Fascinating_.

‘You gunna give us some o’ that or what?’ A voice from behind her knees.

‘Pleasant morning, dearest Addy.’

‘The gods’re testing me plenty without you sticking a boot in,’ she took the cup Saryoni offered, drained it, and held it for a refill. ‘What’s so interesting anyway.’

Saryoni waved a hand. ‘Oh, nothing. Just remembering what it’s like to be young.’

Addut-Lamanu gave her an arch look. ‘Fine time for it.’ She pushed herself to her feet, grunting with the effort. She stretched out her hips, her back. ‘Fuck me. My spine don’t remember being young, tell you that for free.’

‘Why didn’t you come inside?’ Saryoni was incredulous. ‘Your very own bedroll, not three yards away.’

‘What, when me and the ladies’re busy putting the world to rights?’

‘Oh yes? And what are your policy recommendations?’

Addut-Lamanu shook her head. ‘Gods below, that ain’t how it works, flower.’

‘Ah.’

‘_Ah_.’ She seemed to complete her calisthenics routine. ‘So,’ she planted her hands on her hips. ‘You’ll be off soon, eh?’

‘Mm. Got a scroll of recall here,’ she patted her pack. ‘That’ll get me back to Ald’ruhn, then I’ll hope for a caravan. Back in Vivec in a few days, gods willing.’

‘What’ll you do there?’

She scanned the camp. An eager handful of the people had started dismantling tents already. The shalk - what remained of them after the feast - would go with Addut-Lamanu and a small group of herders, back to Maar Gan until further notice. The rest of the Urshilaku… Saryoni felt her breath catching.

‘Whatever I can,’ she said.

‘Should’ve known the archcanon would slip away in the dawn,’ she could hear the smirk on the voice.

‘Wise Woman Kurapli,’ she turned to greet her with a slight bow. ‘Not without your leave, of course.’

‘You old brown-noser,’ she smiled broadly, stepping forward to wrap her in a bear-hug. Saryoni suddenly realised quite how queasy she still felt. ‘You’ve got everything you need?’

‘I do. I will never forget your kindness, and the love you gave my mother.’ Saryoni studied the ashen earth. ‘The love you extended to me.’

Kurapli shrugged, squeezed the archcanon’s shoulder. ‘Everyone comes home eventually, Tholer. We’ll see each other again some day, further down the road.’

Saryoni could only smile at this. ‘If you find yourself near the cities, please send me a report. I can arrange some kind of secrecy if necessary.’

‘Very kind,’ the wise woman sighed, ‘nothing but ash between us and the mountain, though.’

The archcanon nodded. ‘Well. Gods guide your feet, Wise Woman Kurapli.’

‘Three blessings, Archcanon Saryoni,’ Kurapli replied, and left her with a bow.

Saryoni turned to her friend, at last.

‘So!’

‘So.’ 

‘That’ll be you, then.’ Addut-Lamanu brushed some dirt off her robe.

‘It will. I-’

‘Just so-’

‘You first.’

‘Ahh fine. Tholer,’ Addut-Lamanu’s jaw clenched, and a little flush appeared round her eyes, suddenly glassy in the weak sunlight. ‘Ah, fuck. I told meself not to do this.’

Saryoni found her own chest tightening. ‘I’m so, _ so _ glad I found you again, Addut-Lamanu. You’re…’

‘Och, not you and all-’

The archcanon let a little burst of laughter leave her. ‘Now! Now _ you _ can fuck off, I am the archcanon, and I shall weep when I please!’

‘Oh, come here.’ Addut-Lamanu swept her friend up in her arms. ‘You’ve given this old dickhead some hope, you know?’ She wiped her eyes as she let go. ‘You won’t forget us?’

‘Addy.’ Saryoni bit her lip as a tear dropped down her cheek. She leaned up and planted a kiss on her friend’s cheek. ‘Couldn’t if I wanted to.’

They embraced again. She took a step back from her friend, and drew a roll of parchment from her pack. It kicked up a small cloud of ash as it unfurled, waking a few elders in coughing fits.

‘Better make it swift, our kid.’ Addut-Lamanu smirked.

‘I love you, Addy. Thank you.’ Tholer smiled.

‘I love you too, Tholer. You’re welcome.’

She laughed once more, exhaled deeply. Read the symbols of the scroll, and vanished in a flash of magical light.

Addut-Lamanu regarded the empty space for a long moment, as Kurapli took her hand and held it tight.

Finally, she turned to her with a nod, and the Urshilaku prepared for the road to Red Mountain.


	17. Dawn

Ana-Amari couldn’t remember exactly when Red Mountain appeared on the horizon. Only that one moment she had looked up, and there it was. A great, ashen rent in the skyline, looming up above the foothills, tall, billowing ash clouds visible even a couple of days’ hike away. The mood was still bright in the travelling party, as one song followed another, mile after mile, their melodies strange to her ears, their meaning unknown. She checked her shadow, made a calculation, traced a line from her feet to a few degrees west over the mountain’s peak. Maybe a week as the racer flies, she thought. Home.

And Reinhardt further off than that.

The little fishing boat that had carried them from one end of Vvardenfell to the other had been broken down for firewood for the feast, and she’d fashioned herself a decent walking stick from an oar. She poked at the ground with it as they walked, the earth dry and crumbling.

She became aware of a change in her kitten’s stride, as if a new burden had been added to her pack.

‘The kitten has questions?’

Oxton almost tripped over her own feet. She recovered gamely. ‘Someday I’ll figure out how you do that.’

The den-mother smiled to herself, shrugged. ‘There is no secret, only attention. What ails this one?’

She gave a weak laugh. ‘How long you got.’

‘A couple of days, then Ana-Amari has a fight to the death she cannot reschedule.’

‘Guess that’s one of ‘em, eh. I mean, I’ve got this whole destiny thing to deal with, but in your shoes I would’ve done a runner days ago.’

Ana-Amari’s walking stick tapped in rhythm. She shrugged. ‘Khajiit is not so sure.’

‘No?’

‘From what friend Milo says, the kitten’s responsibilities vanished with the Lady’s ring. So, Ana-Amari thinks this one is _already_ in her shoes, and look: she stays the course.’

‘Hold up, Milo thinks I ain’t the Nerevarine any more?’

Ana-Amari was aware of a few curious glances from their ashlander companions. ‘If the kitten ever _was_.’ She waved a hand dismissively. ‘Ana-Amari is no scholar. Here is the heart of the matter. Where are you going?’

‘Red Mountain.’

‘Why.’

‘To kill god.’

‘Why.’

‘Because…’

The old thief’s stick tapped, tapped, tapped. Another stride closer. Another. She let the silence do what it needed.

‘Because,’ Oxton began again, ‘it’s not every day you get a chance to... change things, I mean, _really_ change things. Do something lasts longer’n you do.’

Ana-Amari pursed her lips, nodded. Turned to look at her kitten, slapped a firm paw on her shoulder. ‘You remind Ana-Amari of a young khajiit she once knew.’

‘Yeah? She cute?’

The old thief laughed. ‘Oh, very much so. Suitors in every district of Mournhold. Not so skinny as this one, though. Better hair.’

‘Alright, cool your pants, granny.’

‘The kitten is one to talk,’ she smirked. Glancing across, she noticed Oxton’s ears turn crimson as she became suddenly engrossed by the landscape.

They walked on in comfortable silence. The ashlands were peaceful today, the roving packs of alit and kagouti keeping their distance from the largest company to pass through the wilds in centuries. The land was washed out in harsh, charcoal greys, spots of murky brown where the most recent rainfall had gathered into dank pools. Rolling dunes to the horizon. And passing through it, the people. The people who had once been stewards of the whole province, gradually demoted to its most unforgiving swatches of land.

Ana-Amari looked behind them. The hours of walking had spread the party thin, the convoy trailing back a good half-mile, but their voices were bright and lively, and the sound of sturdy boots echoed down the foyada. In the distance, a high, black ponytail bobbed above the crowd alongside a deep blue robe.

‘Can I ask you something, granny?’

‘Proceed.’

‘How’d you… your eye.’

‘How khajiit lost it?’ A raised eyebrow.

‘Yeah, but, I mean… no. How did you, um, recover? Like, that scar looks _old_ old, so you must’ve done a fuckton of thieving since then…’

‘Just so. And in all Ana-Amari’s vast years she has never met such a sensitive thief.’

She slapped her forehead. ‘Fuck, sorry. What I _mean_ is-’

‘-Breathe, kitten. Before you herniate yourself.’ She rubbed a paw across the young thief’s back. Her walking stick tapped the soft, dusty ground. ‘It was… not easy. Khajiit certainly was not swinging swords and climbing mountains by Fredas.’

Oxton snorted a little. ‘Wouldn’t be my first choice, either.’

‘Fair.’ Tap. Tap. Tap. ‘Khajiit did not know,’ she took a long breath, the words coming slow and painful. ‘how much _value_ she placed… on her...’ she waved a paw, ‘_self-sufficiency_. She was, Lena Oxton, a very foolish kitten.’

The Nerevarine nodded, let her den-mother’s words hang in the air. Tap. Tap. A faraway look crossed the old thief’s face. ‘Many things which belong in the past,’ she sighed at last. ‘But, listen to den-mother: there is no virtue in hoarding your pain like a dragon. One must talk again, and trust again, even when it feels like pushing a boulder up a mountain.’ She allowed herself a soft smile. ‘One never knows who else has pushed precisely such a boulder.’

Oxton nodded again, pushed the air out of her lungs. ‘Got some idea, gran,’ she smiled wryly, running a hand through her hair. ‘Thank you.’

Ana-Amari made a face. ‘Pfft. For what? Words are free, kitten.’ She jabbed her shoulder. ‘Thank granny when she does something worthwhile.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’

‘_Yeah, yeah_,’ the old thief mimicked, the likeness uncanny. ‘This is how the kitten sounds. _Yeah, yeah, I understand all wisdom a priori, yeah yeah_.’

‘This part of the healing process?’

‘Eh, the kitten is tough,’ Ana-Amari squared her shoulders, ‘like her den-mother. Ana-Amari knows this.’

Swift, soft footsteps behind them. ‘Pardon me, den-mother, would you mind if I spoke to Lena for a moment?’

Ana-Amari turned to Oxton. ‘See? Manners. Respect. Why can kitten not be more like the nice blade-for-hire.’

‘Delighted to meet your approval at last,’ LaCroix arched an eyebrow.

‘Let us not get carried away, spider. This one has five minutes while khajiit sources moonshine for camp tonight.’

‘That is all I ask.’

The old thief touched her forelock and followed her nose off into the crowd. LaCroix took her place beside Oxton, met her eyes with the slightest smile on her lips.

‘Hello sunshine,’ the thief grinned. ‘Took your time.’

‘I can take longer if you prefer.’ In her midnight-blue travelling gear, LaCroix looked like she’d RSVP-ed to the wrong party. Oxton took her in for a moment, saw the tightness in her shoulders, the whiteness round the knuckles of her sword hand.

‘Huh. Old cat was right,’ she said, half to herself.

‘Henh?’

‘Nothing.’ LaCroix sighed down her nose at this. ‘What?’

‘You are so open sometimes yet insist on staying cryptic at others. It is vexing.’

Oxton blinked at her, eyebrows toward the clear blue sky.

‘What.’

‘Noth-’ the thief caught herself. ‘Hm. It seems to me,’ she coughed, ‘that might not be an area of strength for you either?’

The assassin looked ahead, as if she had not heard. ‘I see.’

Oxton looked at her for some cue. ‘Was there something you wanted to talk about?’ she prompted.

LaCroix rolled her shoulders a little, as if her pack gave her some discomfort. ‘Yes. About tonight. You have made arrangements for setting up camp?’

‘Well, I was going to stay with Kurapli again, just in case I do any, y’know, mission-critical dreaming.’

‘I see.’ The sound of conversation all around them, a pool of silence between them.

‘Uh… unless you have some other ideas?’ she offered.

‘Yes.’ She swallowed, cleared her throat. ‘I, ah, I have a tent.’

Oxton clenched her jaw to stop the giggles. ‘Mhm?’

‘And, if you wanted, I mean, before you have to go and do your… dreaming…’

Oxton took mercy. She grabbed the assassin’s free hand. ‘Amé, you’re asking if I wanna camp with you?’

LaCroix froze. ‘I. Yes. Would you? Like that?’

A smile crossed her face like a wave reaching the shore. ‘I would, as it happens.’

LaCroix couldn’t stop the corners of her mouth from quirking up, just for a second. Oxton saw, just for a moment, something soften in her, before she drew up her defences again, the old facade settling into place.

‘Good,’ the assassin confirmed. ‘You will find me with Milo when we make camp.’

‘Reckon I’ll manage, sunbeam. You kinda stand out in a crowd,’ she stage-whispered.

LaCroix rolled her eyes. ‘Do not make me regret this,’ she said, taking her leave.

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ she called after her. Oxton walked on a distance, alone, stretching her arm overhead, feeling the heat of the sun on her palm. A minute or so up the road, she spotted Ana-Amari perched on a long-dessicated log, chewing an apple. She spotted Oxton coming and tossed a spare one out of her pack.

Oxton surprised herself by catching it cleanly. ‘Thought you was getting the booze in.’

‘These came with the booze.’ Ana-Amari tilted her head. ‘Why has the kitten got a belly full of sweetmeat?’

Oxton shrugged theatrically, took a large bite through a smug little grin. ‘Just one of those mysteries I guess.’

‘Fine.’ She dusted off her trousers as she stood, gave a look across the horizon to the mountain. It stood there, a matter of fact, a fixed point. The chunk of apple she had swallowed felt suddenly heavy. 'Ana-Amari has made a decision, kitten,’ she declared, pushing that feeling down to her boots.

‘Oh yeah?’ Oxton fell easily back into step alongside her.

‘Mm. When all this is over, khajiit will go to Skyrim, to find what became of Fareeha.’

‘When all this is over…’ she echoed, apple halfway to her mouth. ‘Believe it when I see it, gran.’

‘And that is a great attitude to _not_ see it, kitten. How many scrapes has this one seen in her time?’

Oxton puffed out her cheeks. ‘Too many.’

‘And den-mother has seen double. _Triple_. And look,’ she spread her arms. ‘Survived them all.’

The young thief chuckled as she took a last bite. ‘Just a trip to the greengrocers, eh?’

‘_That_ is more like it.’

A flock of cliff racers circled in the distance, screeching the news of spilled blood. A fallen guar, maybe.

‘You think you’ll find her out there?’

‘Khajiit does not know,’ she smiled. ‘But it will be worth finding out.’

A dozen racers swooped through the golden sunshine, two dozen beady eyes on the small army trekking through the wastes.

* * *

‘That’s not on the agenda, Serul.’

‘Gods below, does everything have to go through the s’wit agenda?’

‘Yes! If you’d _listened_ at the last meeting-’

‘Wow, okay, that is an obvious over-escalation-’

Jobasha rubbed a paw slowly across his face. He thought the dock workers’ meetings were an ordeal. He swore to forgive them once all this was over.

‘I’m just saying, we’ve got an autonomous zone working _right here, right now_, if we’re not thinking about this in terms of _weeks_ and _months_-’

‘That’s admirable, Ulmesi, but Vivec’s _finest_ are hours away from beating the door down and _surviving the night_ has to be the priority here-’

‘That’s exactly how the cops _want_ us to think. I can’t believe this.’

‘Sit down, Rogdul, please.’

Reinhardt’s arms were folded across his chest, as he scanned the Tong operatives, clutching a small, steaming cup in one hand. He took a quiet sip.

‘Look, Kras Mazov gives us a clear roadmap-’

‘Not this _again_, Minnibi-’

‘There are material conditions to be considered here! Stop me if I’m wrong! Just stop me-!’

‘And if you’d let me know ahead of time, _just once_, Serul, it would already _be_ on the agenda-’

‘Oh, so, what, we’re just going to pretend Mazov’s remarks about armed resistance don’t exist? It’s like I’m going _crazy _here-’

Reinhardt tilted his head slowly toward Jobasha. ‘Is it… always like this?’ he whispered. It was the quietest the bookseller had ever heard him speak.

Jobasha nodded silently into his palm. ‘We are under extreme pressure, though, so we are progressing through the stages of grief much faster than usual.’

‘I see,’ Reinhardt lied.

Jobasha raised his hand as constructive critique was handed from one side of the table to the other.

‘The chair recognises comrade Jobasha.’

‘Warm blessings, Taros. Jobasha would like to propose promoting section seven of the agenda for immediate scrutiny, thus releasing those whose duties it concerns to perform those duties, as a matter of urgency.’

‘Fine point, comrade Jobasha. Any objections?’

‘Oh, so _he_ can change the agenda-’

‘Gods _below_, Serul-’

‘_Motion carried_,’ Taros said, firmly but professionally. ‘Now, the sniper nests are in place, thanks again to comrade Reinhardt for assistance in their construction.’

The old thief’s face lit up. _This_, he understood. ‘A pleasure, my friend! Huzzah!!’

Taros moved swiftly on. ‘So, we need to remember that, barring any sudden, drastic changes in the popular consciousness’ - a few chuckles round the table - ‘the citizenry are unlikely to look kindly on casualties among the ordinators. The mages from the temple have enchanted our bows with paralysis magic, but a shot to the eye is lethal no matter what you hex it with. So,’ Taros looked down at their ledger, ‘the snipers have agreed to aim for the arms and legs. Nothing that can’t be fixed up once the fighting cools down.’

A few murmurs round the table.

‘This is bullshit,’ spat Serul.

Jobasha breathed heavily through his nose. He’d dealt with this sort of thing-

‘How many police have you killed, friend Serul.’

Jobasha blinked. Turned to look at Reinhardt, face like a thundercloud, all kindness gone from his eye. The room turned silent in an instant.

‘Well, there aren’t many _contracts_ out on police-’

‘No? Odd. Why so.’ Reinhardt was _extremely_ calm.

Serul blinked at him. ‘Okay, look, I didn’t mean-’

‘I would say it is because when you assassinate a citizen, you present your writs to the guards, and the earth keeps turning.’ Reinhardt spoke clearly, carefully. ‘When you even _think_ of killing a guard, they strike you down where you stand, writs or no, and that is when your troubles truly begin.’

Serul sat rigid in his seat, arms crossed. ‘Are you done?’

‘I was once young and foolish, like you,’ he nodded. Perhaps Reinhardt had heard him, perhaps not. ‘Before I had truly known fear, or loss, or death.’ The Nord lifted his eyepatch, revealing an old, old scar, still a livid pink. ‘I hope that friend Serul learns faster than Reinhardt did.’ He cleared his throat as he sat back in his chair. ‘I apologise, friend Taros. Please proceed.’

Jobasha and Taros shared a look. ‘Thank you, uh, comrade Reinhardt,’ they scratched the back of their head, suppressed a smile. ‘So, that was our most pressing matter, defence-wise. The front-line guys,’ they nodded again to Reinhardt, ‘are good to go, and everybody _needs_ to check in with the healers before go-time, okay? They’ve brewed up a whole bunch of magical shit, and I don’t want to see any spares come midnight. Right, Minnibi and Rogdul, we have some intel to discuss, everybody else…’ they took a long breath, ‘if I don’t get a chance to say it before tonight, it’s been a pleasure organising with you. Free Vivec.’

‘_Free Vivec_’ the room echoed. Jobasha surprised himself by joining in. On his way out, he caught Taros’ attention.

‘Friend Taros, a quick word.’

‘Sure thing, Jobasha, what’s up.’

‘A minor matter, but Jobasha has been assigned to the healers, but he has little more than schoolyard magic. Is there some way he could be more use?’

‘Okay, do you have any proficiency with a bow?’

Jobasha shook his head.

‘Got a warhammer stashed away somewhere?’

Jobasha chuckled. ‘Must have left it in my other jacket.’

Taros gave an apologetic smile. ‘The healers will be well back from the fighting. Short of teleporting out of here, it’s the safest option.’

Jobasha nodded. ‘It would be a shame to miss out, after all our hard work. Thank you, Taros. See you tonight.’

‘See you tonight, brother.’ They turned back to the much emptier table. ‘Now, reports from the city: Minnibi, any word from our agents?’

Jobasha jogged to the door, where Reinhardt was waiting. He was chatting amiably with the crotchety operative, Serul.

‘These are tense times, friend Serul! If there is a meeting with no friction, how are we to know all are listening!? Bahahaha!!’

Serul looked a little sheepish. ‘Yeah, well, I’m... sorry, anyway.’

He waved a meaty hand. ‘If no one forgave Reinhardt when he acted the maggot, Reinhardt would be a very lonely Nord!!’ He slapped the young operative’s shoulder with a thud.

‘_Hooff_, good to know,’ he wheezed. ‘I’ll, uh, I’ll see you tonight, comrade.’

‘Tonight!!’ Reinhardt bellowed.

Jobasha watched the operative go. ‘This one is a natural. Would friend Reinhardt consider re-training as a mediator?’

The old thief sipped his tea. ‘Bahh, that was nothing, simply young foolishness!’

‘It might surprise this one how much foolishness there is, young or otherwise.’

He seemed not to hear. ‘It will be good to swing the old hammer again, friend Jobasha. It has been much too long.’

The bookseller hummed, strolling across the plaza. Hopping up to the planter underneath the square’s great tree, he scanned the space. The great wooden doors to the west, the only mundane means of entry, bolted and barricaded: they would hold for some time, perhaps tire out a few of their number. A makeshift passageway to bottleneck the fighting: the best-drilled force in the land cannot fight ten-to-one, and the ordinators have been pulling double-shifts since St Llothis’ Day. In the courtyard of the erstwhile Hlaalu councillor Half-Troll, a space for the healers to work: their symbol - a humanoid figure with fire rising round their head - life size on the outer walls. The ordinators had a reputation for… _failing to recognise_ such things. Jobasha felt his fur rising.

‘Something is on friend Jobasha’s mind?’

‘Just so,’ he nodded. ‘It feels like when Jobasha was a kitten, putting on a play for Longest Night.’

Reinhardt laughed warmly. ‘Well, friend Jobasha, your lines are very simple!! There is time for politicking, and there is time for war.’ He sighed, almost fondly. ‘I cannot remember the last time I had a good, honest, fight. No surprises, no complications.’ He finished the last of his tea, set the cup on the edge of the planter, where it wobbled for a long second, before toppling to the hard stone floor.

* * *

Tholer Saryoni settled herself into the passenger seat with a long and vocal sigh, dumping her pack between her feet. Her recall spell had dropped her outside the temple in Ald’ruhn just in time to hear the silt strider caravan’s last bell pealing across the square. At a dead sprint and calling out like a wounded cliff racer, she caught them just in time to pay the only slightly exorbitant passenger fare. The strider carriage, strapped to the creature’s shell like a jaunty hat, was cramped, but homely: a few cushions on the wooden boards, woven fabrics from every corner of Morrowind for shelter. The driver turned to her with an amused look.

‘Good timing, eh?’ The driver knocked a few esoteric rhythms onto the beast’s carapace before setting her feet up on the edge of the shell, hands folded across her chest. Saryoni chose not to think too hard about how one communicated with a bug the size of a house.

‘May the Three bless you, sister. I could have been waiting a week for a ride.’

‘Aye,’ she chuckled, ‘wouldn’t want to scuff those new boots of yours.’

‘B’Vek, these boots have seen half the island already.’

She pouted, reluctantly impressed. ‘Got a better cobbler than me, then,’ she sniffed. 

Saryoni noticed a palm-sized stone tablet on the board next to her. It hummed gently with some kind of enchantment. She gave it an experimental tap, a light flowing across its flat surface.

‘Oop, mind that, it’s experimental.’ The driver leant back toward it, the light faded as she tapped it again. ‘Mages guild gave us ‘em as payment for their last shipment.’

‘A warding stone? I saw something like it last time I was in Mournhold…’

‘Nah, communicator. I’ve one and Navam’s one.’ She nodded toward the mer on the ground, leading a short convoy of pack-guar. ‘Just tap it and start talking. Saves me going up and down a rope ladder every time we need a natter. Eats magicka like a starving nix, mind.’

Saryoni nodded, a little distant. ‘Everything changes,’ she said.

‘Mhm.’ The driver took a loaf out of her back, started carving herself a slice, glanced over her shoulder at her unexpected passenger, then the fistful of gold she’d handed over. ‘So! Off to Balmora is it? Finished your pilgriming?’ She nodded at Saryoni’s coarse travelling cloak.

‘That’s the plan. Then pray to the saints there’s another caravan heading to Vivec.’

She took a bite. ‘Here, you ain’t thinking of heading there alone, are you?’ she asked, mouth half-full.

The archcanon’s brow furrowed. ‘Why do you ask?’ 

‘You’re joking, right? You been under a rock?’

‘Say that I have. Why wouldn’t I travel there alone? I _left_ there alone.’ Saryoni leant forward, hands resting on the back of the driver’s bench.

‘Good thing we’ve a long road ahead. When’d you set off?’

‘B’Vek, feels like years. A week or two? Just before St Llothis.’

‘Right, well, that’s when it all started. They say the spirit of Llothis himself showed up, or Azura, or _someone_. Ask three caravaners and they’ll tell you three answers.’

‘One is enough. How does a miracle turn into a…?’

‘A royal shitshow?’ she smirked. ‘Well, turns out Councillor Half-Troll nicked a bollockload of gold off the Temple, pardon my Breton, and used it all to feather his various nests, right under the archcanon’s nose.’

Saryoni felt her blood run cold. _Fifty thousand drakes_… ‘Foolish,’ she whispered, a vision of a smiling Nord in fine clothes, hoodwinking her in her own office, two brandy glasses chiming in accord. How had she ever been so naïve?

‘I’ll say. Wouldn’t like to be in her way when she found out, tell you that for free. But, see, that’s the weird bit.’

‘That _wasn’t_ the weird bit?’ Saryoni slumped backward, running her hands through her hair. It felt dry and brittle.

‘Oh ho _ho_, this is where it gets _juicy_. Right, everyone knows the ordinators don’t even answer to Vivec themself these days,’ a blood vessel throbbed in Saryoni’s temple, ‘so, a few hundred pilgrims _chase_ that thievin’ Hlaalu bastard clean out of Vvardenfell, then seize the plaza, then set up a… oh, what’d they call it… _autonomous zone_. Free shit for everyone, _you_ know. Then the ordinators roll up, say fuck that for a jolly, besiege the place!’

‘Gods beneath us,’ Saryoni managed. Her timescale for reform had just shrunk by about a decade.

‘Mm, shocking stuff. No better than the emperor’s legion, those fetchers, like dogs without a leash. Last I heard, them up on the plaza got an ultimatum. If they ain’t out by midnight…’ She made a noise like a dagger crossing a throat. ‘Brutal. But that’s the world we live in, eh?’

‘Midnight…!’ Saryoni covered her mouth with a hand, then shielded her eyes as she looked to the sky. The sun wasn’t quite at its peak, but the morning was far from young. Her mouth was dry, her heart battered in her chest. ‘Driver, I wonder if I could ask you a hypothetical question.’

‘Not a fan of hypotheticals, love, they tend to get a bit too thetical. What’s on your mind?’

Saryoni took a breath. ‘How much would it cost to get us to Vivec before sundown?’

The driver turned round in her seat, halfway through a mouthful of bread. ‘You’re…’

‘I am Tholer Saryoni, archcanon of the Tribunal Temple,’ she said, drawing her seal from her pack, ‘and I need to speak with a god.’


	18. Dusk

Kurapli hammered the last of the pegs into the dusty ground. The sun had dipped just below the horizon, long shadows crossing the people’s temporary camp in the foothills of Red Mountain. The wise woman ducked inside the tent. Nibani Maesa’s workbench had travelled south to the settler village at Maar Gan, but the yurt was still more than habitable. She took a moment to breathe, to feel the earth beneath the four corners of her feet. Steady, warmer than up by the coast.

That much closer to the mountain.

She turned and opened the door to the yurt, calling the elders inside. She took a spot by the fire pit, summoning a tidy fireball and tossing it into the kindling.

The five elders filed in, tossing their own little fires into the pit. One had brought a fistful of herbs instead, and soon the yurt was warm, earthy, homely. 

‘How are the feet, Zabamund?’ Kurapli greeted the last of the elders, levering herself to the ground, her neighbour holding her hand as she flumped onto the cushions.

‘Seven curses on the outlanders,’ she huffed, ‘but I’d kiss the emperor’s toes for an armchair.’

Kurapli joined the laughter. ‘I’ll have Shara bring some ointment round later. Good enough?’

Zabamund lifted her face to the heavens. ‘Finally, a wise woman with some answers.’

‘Right.’ Kurapli clapped, then spread her hands, looked each elder in the eyes. ‘How are we doing out there.’

Sakiran, the only elder born after Kurapli, spoke first. ‘The hunters are in good spirits, but they’re mostly kids. Still feels like an adventure to them.’ She tightened the knot in her pony-tail. ‘Reckon one of us should give them a talk, someone who knew Peakstar. Make sure there aren’t any nasty shocks when the fighting starts.’

Kurapli nodded. ‘Thank you, Sakiran. Shimsun, you can take care of that?’

‘Aye, wise woman.’ A voice like the tide, deep and low. ‘I’ll call them together after mealtime.’ She shifted her shoulders, the lines of scar and muscle flowing in the shadow of the fire.

‘Perfect.’ She looked toward the oldest of the group, raised her voice ever so slightly. ‘Maeli, how are our supplies.’

The old herbalist grinned back at her. ‘A few more orders from them outlanders and we can pack in this whole fightin’ the devil business. Get one of them forts they have nowadays, tell ‘em to kiss _our_ arses.’

‘By the Lady, we’re in good form tonight,’ Kurapli smiled. ‘Here I was worrying about morale, what with marching into certain death.’

Zabamund chimed in. ‘When you’re my age, lass, every march is certain death.’ She elbowed Maeli in the ribs.

‘Anyways,’ the herbalist continued, grinning, ‘supply-wise, we’ve got more’n enough to get us _up_ the mountain.’ The smile faded from her lips. ‘As to getting _down_, that’s in Azura’s hands now.’

‘Always was,’ growled Shimsun, dragging a stick through the soft earth. The elder at her side, silent till this point, hummed their agreement.

Kurapli acknowledged them. ‘Piremus, what have the scouts got for us?’

Piremus glanced up from the fire, their eyes narrowing as they adjusted to the darkness. They cleared their throat, their voice raspy and precise. ‘Hmm. Nothing good. And some are not overjoyed to be led by a dreaming outlander.’

‘Need me to have a word?’

Piremus jutted their jaw indifferently. ‘People like to complain. Stepping in now would make them think they have something to complain about.’

Maeli nudged her neighbour. ‘See? She shouldn’t’ve caved to your unreasonable demands.’

‘Here, if I were fifty years younger-’

‘Ladies,’ Kurapli raised a hand, half a smile crossing her face. ‘Time for that at dinner. Piremus, you were saying.’

They nodded, patiently allowing quiet to settle. Shimsun placed a large hand on their back, which raised the ghost of a smile. ‘Thank you, wise woman. We… found something. Someone.’ They swallowed drily. ‘Corprus. Took him down from a distance. Burned the body.’

The fire crackled in the yurt, a little smoke puffing up as a herb leaf tumbled into the ash.

‘So it _was_ corprus took the outlander’s arm,’ Sakiran rubbed her forehead. ‘Fuck me.’

‘The _Nerevarine’s_ arm,’ Maeli corrected. ‘We’ll have to get used to thinking of her as one of us.’

‘We’re dead set on that then?’ Sakiran grimaced. ‘Seems like a lot of faith in her, a stranger and a spy.’

Kurapli tossed a few more herbs on the fire, which consumed them greedily. ‘We’re not putting faith in _her_, Sakiran. She didn’t choose herself.’

‘Lass’s got a point, wise woman,’ rumbled Shimsun. ‘Some of the older hunters find it all too… convenient. Politically speaking.’

The wise woman studied the elder hunter. ‘Thank you for speaking freely, Shimsun. I’m aware of how the land lies, regards this or that imperial faction. And how _convenient _it’d be for everyone if we shuffled off for good, or dragged the Dagoths to oblivion with us. But,’ she took a deep breath, ‘you know as well as I do what Nibani Maesa taught us. The Lady doesn’t think in terms of mortal politicking, and when it comes to the Nerevarine, neither should we.’

The big hunter rubbed her knuckles in a palm. ‘Understood.’

‘Do we have an accord, Shimsun? You know how much your opinion means to me. To all of us.’ The other elders nodded. Piremus laid a hand on the hunter’s elbow.

After a moment, a smile cracked across her face, her scars creasing in wild patterns. ‘Guess you leave the hunting to me, and I’ll leave the gods to you.’ She showed her teeth.

‘Eee, thought yous were ready for a rumble there,’ Zabamund exhaled.

Kurapli smiled broadly. ‘No worries. We can always settle it at the next stickball game.’

Shimsun belly laughed at that. ‘Oh, you remember where you stashed your club have you?’

‘Right you two,’ Maeli intervened, ‘that’s enough excitement, I’ve outlanders to fleece.’

There was a polite knock on the doorframe. Kurapli replied in the affirmative. Milo ducked their head under the tent flap. ‘Oh, you are talking,’ they said, in stilted Urshilaku language.

‘Speak of the devil,’ Maeli muttered, getting a giggle and a nudge from Zabamund.

‘We’re just wrapping up,’ Kurapli reassured her in the common tongue. ‘That’s all for now,’ she said to the elders in her first language again, ‘eat well, rest well. That’s an order from your wise woman.’

A murmur of agreement as they rose to their feet. Maeli holding Zabamund’s hand as she stood, Shimsun and the wise woman gripping arms, exchanging a sly grin. They filed out past Milo, who tried not to take up too much space. Sakiran gave them a wink as she passed. Finally they had the wise woman’s full attention.

‘Hearthfriend Milo,’ Kurapli embraced them. ‘I’ve hardly had a second with you since you got here, you must forgive me.’

‘You’ve had a lot on,’ they gave a half-smile. ‘You said to let you know when my friends had finished setting up?’

‘Yes,’ she said, a little quickly, as if just recalling it. ‘It’s rather important the Nerevarine gets a good night’s sleep.’

‘Ah, um. Sure. She’ll be camping with LaCroix. The tall one.’

‘Oh, the posh one with the sexual tension. They’re taking care of that?’

Milo barked a laugh. ‘Fuck me running. Don’t think they’re gunna swap knitting patterns, Kurapli.’

‘Maeli owes me a bottle. Tell her for me if you see her?’

‘Sure thing, wise woman,’ Milo smirked. They made for the tent flap. ‘Was that all?’

Kurapli raised a hand, _wait_. ‘Like to pick your brain a moment, if you wouldn’t mind.’

‘All yours.’

She folded her legs underneath her, offered Milo a seat by the fire. Its magical energy was beginning to dissipate, glowing with a warm, soft yellow flame. Kurapli caught their eye as Milo sat. She cleared her throat.

‘You’ve been reading the prophecies as long as I have.’ It was a statement, and Milo nodded. The wise woman stared into the fire, then off to the side, tension clearly gathering in her shoulders. She threw her hands up, finally. ‘Ah, fuck it. Milo,’ her gaze almost bore through them, ‘is this what Nibani would’ve done?’

Milo’s eyes widened in confusion, for a moment. They took each other in, until finally Kurapli cracked a smile, and Milo couldn’t help the giggles from coming. The wise woman buried her face in her hands as she growled in frustration, only half in jest.

‘Everyone bares their souls to me!’ Milo wiped a little tear from their eye. ‘It’s a fucking curse.’

‘Yeah, well, you shouldn’t be such a sound cunt then,’ Kurapli shot back, suppressing another bout of hysteria. ‘Fuck.’

‘Mate, you know as well as I do the prophecies are just… _designed _to be confounding. Is that randy pickpocket Indoril Nerevar reborn?’ Kurapli hooted a laugh. ‘Fuck knows. I’ll ask him if I see him. But, she’s been through the wringer ten times over and is still fighting. And y’know what matters more, than, like, _any_ of that hokey old bullshit?’ They grabbed her hands, squeezed. ‘You’ve got good people. A whole camp of ‘em. And it don’t take many good people to move mountains.’

‘Good thing we only have to move one, eh?’ Kurapli exhaled heavily, blinked at the ceiling. ‘By the four corners, you’re good at that.’

Milo shrugged in mock modesty. ‘I’m a catch,’ they grinned.

‘I’ll say.’ She composed herself again. ‘Right. Thanks, Milo. Tell anyone about this and I’ll shit in your porridge.’

‘You say the sweetest things, darling.’ They got up to go. One hand on the doorframe.

A quiet voice. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Milo. Good to take the mask off now and again.’

Milo turned. They hadn’t seen Kurapli make a face like that since they were kids. They smiled, made a confused face. ‘What mask?’

Kurapli nodded. _Okay then_. ‘Sleep well, Milo.’

‘You too, mate.’

The wise woman stared into the last scraps of magical fire, rubbed her knuckles round her eyes. Threw another fireball into the pit. Gathered some parchment. Began to write.

* * *

Saryoni left a small fortune with the driver at the Vivec strider port, scrambled down the ladder and blessed the three for solid ground. The sky was turning from scarlet into wine-darkness. Even from the mainland surrounding the cantons, even to a green pilgrim on their first visit to the holy city, a sickly anxiety palpably filled the air, like the stones themselves had caught the blight.

She jogged down the hill to water level, shuffling past a few dozen citizens heading the other way, packs heavy with goods, bleak looks on their faces. Few turned to watch her as she passed.

One gondolier remained on the dock, leaning on his oar, staring out toward the High Fane, silhouetted in the burnished light of dusk.

‘Thank the Three I caught you,’ Saryoni panted. ‘How much to the Temple canton?’

He spat into the murky water. ‘What business you got there?’

She blinked, taken aback. ‘What business is that of _yours_?’

‘Aren’t many going _back_ the way tonight, citizen. Ordinators seen to that. Can take you to the Arena canton, but south of that you’d best know how to swim.’ He shook his head, sadly. ‘Or fly.’

Saryoni felt the air in her lungs ignite. Across the bay, dozens of gondoliers, ferrying what looked like a whole canton’s worth of people out of the city. She turned to the boatman.

‘I’m sorry to do this,’ she stated, calm, calm, drawing the Temple seal from her pack, ‘but I’m afraid an awful lot depends on me reaching the Fane as soon as possible.’

The boatman’s brow knitted as he studied the parchment. ‘B’_Vekh_.’ The colour drained from his cheeks. He looked out into the bay, as if it might have a better suggestion. He lowered his head, finally. ‘I can take the long way round, out past Telvanni. But if they see me _delivering _folk, and not _removing_ them, we’re both risking our hides, Archcanon.’

Saryoni stared out across the cantons. The echoes of barked orders rolled out to meet her, like terrible birdsong. ‘You are right, of course.’ She blinked the tears from her eyes, the fatigue of the past day, the past week, the past year, all standing there with her on the dock. The captain of the guard, Andas, had counted on her absence. Revealing herself now was as likely to expedite his assault on St Olms as end it. And who would miss one pilgrim in a time of martial law...

She shook the grim thought from her mind, took the deepest breath she could manage, and turned to the boatman. Drew a pouch from her bag. ‘This is for the gondola. And your hat.’

He looked at her like she’d told him to juggle slaughterfish.

‘As you say, the two of us will draw suspicion.’ She drew the oar gently out of his grasp. ‘But not one gondolier in a road-worn cloak.’

‘But my boat,’ he protested, though Saryoni could hear his relief, ‘and all the trouble at St Olms, it could go on for weeks...’

She looked him in the eye as she stepped aboard. ‘It won’t.’

* * *

The gondola glided out into the Ascadian Bay. Past the Foreign Quarter, where hundreds had gathered on the upper balconies, watching something from a safe distance. From the water level, Saryoni could not tell what.

Under the bridge between Telvanni and the Arena. A squad of ordinators held the crossing, one of them bellowing at someone out of her eyeline. Their armour glowed in the late sunlight, golden and spotless.

She pushed her oar through the murky water, past one sewer outlet, then another, dreaming of the bathhouses and a warm bed. Saryoni shook herself, steeled herself. Not much further.

The St Olms canton was fortified. Archers on the upper levels. A dozen armed guards on each bridge. More, no doubt, on the far side. Saryoni felt the heaviness in her arms as she pushed on, the wood coarse and grating against the skin on her palms. She kept her focus on the Temple canton, as the tide pulled her onward.

A few yards out from St Olms, the shadow of the canton reaching out ahead. The oar dragged on something in the water, almost slipping out of her grip. She cursed, instinctively, her voice echoing up between the huge stone walls. Another length closer to the temple. Another-

‘_You there!_’ A voice from the canton. She paddled gently on, calm, calm.

‘_Stop where you are! That is an order!_’ A young voice, hoarse and breaking at the edges. But a voice with power to harm, nonetheless. Saryoni placed her oar across the planks of the gondola, pulled her hood low over her face.

‘As you wish,’ she called back.

‘_There is no travel to the Temple canton tonight, orders of Captain Andas. Dock here, and you will be escorted to your home_.’

‘My quarters are in the Temple,’ she shouted. That much was true, at least.

‘_Then you will be housed in St Delyn overnight_.’ The voice was clearly losing patience. Perhaps they, too, were having a bit of a week.

Saryoni looked into the murky depths all around her. Felt her weariness. How many decades had she survived in this city without dipping so much as a toe in water shared by a hundred thousand souls?

‘_This is your last warning, citizen!_’ The voice was growing frantic, and a small crowd had gathered on the Temple side, peering out toward the ruckus. Saryoni could see a fire spell readying in the ordinator’s off-hand.

‘Lady Azura, guide me,’ she whispered, and jumped into the sea, as a fireball screamed into the gondola, engulfing it instantly.

* * *

No words on the plaza of St Olms. 

Reinhardt and the handful of front-line troops were doing some light sparring, the old thief loosening his joints, swinging his warhammer in tight, terrifying loops. Nudging his partner into a better posture, shoulder a little higher, elbow a little closer. Try again.

In the nests along the rear wall, two Tong operatives were turning a floorboard into spare arrows. Emergencies only. No time for fletching. Another pushed red dye across her comrade’s cheeks, down the pressure point at their third eye. Another was testing the bows, drawing the string, adjusting the tautness.

Three old mages walked the perimeter, sprinkling salt, and herbs. Perhaps a magical ward, perhaps a prayer.

Jobasha sat amid these last, quiet rituals, staring at the statue of St Olms the Just, his hands pressed together at his heart. A firm hand on his shoulder snapped him back into the room, into reality, as one of the temple’s healers gave him a tight smile, which he fought hard to return.

Inside, the sound of the temple guards forming ranks. Outside, the guards.

No words on the plaza of St Olms.


	19. Midnight

‘_PAGH. THPB PTHAGH. HKKKKKK. PTHOO._’

Tholer Saryoni flopped onto her back on the hard, smooth wood of the dock, and looked up into the night. The Ministry of Truth hung silently overhead. She had survived, then, and even fetched up out of sight of her attacker. Finally, a stroke of luck. Heavy clouds were forming, as the sun passed from view and the sky turned charcoal, broken only by the sickly light of the moons.

‘By the Three, by the saints, by the high bloody theory of _CHIM_, I solemnly swear, all of this is getting abolished.’

She spat the last dregs of brackish water out of her mouth, took in her surroundings. The dock was abandoned, the gondoliers long since driven north of the occupied canton. She ditched her sodden cloak, wrung what moisture she could out of her hair.

Up the stairs from the waterline, the huge crowd of temple faithful had not moved, but many were hurling insults and curses at the guards on St Olms. As far as they could tell, they had witnessed the cold-blooded murder of a pilgrim. Fine, Saryoni thought. that could be useful.

She rounded the corner toward her chambers in the High Fane. A steady flow of bodies was moving toward the hubbub at the edge of the canton, and no one was looking too carefully at a more-than-commonly bedraggled old wanderer. As she pushed open the door into the living quarters, though, she knew it was only a matter of-

‘Archcanon!?! Archcanon _Saryoni_??’

_Saints preserve us_. She took a breath to steady her nerves. ‘It isn’t Gavas Drin of Mournhold, Falavel.’ The young acolyte looked like he hadn’t slept in days. She could relate.

‘By the light of the Three, Archcanon, I’m so glad you’re here, safe and whole and… are you… you’re soaking, Archcanon! What happened?’

‘A long story, Falavel. I need access to my chambers, and quickly.’

‘Oh, o-of course, I have the keys, come with me.’ They strode down the narrow corridors, all but abandoned with the agitation outside. ‘I should say, Archcanon,’ he sounded despondent, ‘I have bad news, a-about the mission you gave me.’

A pain in Saryoni’s mind as she struggled to recall. It felt like a lifetime ago… ‘Yes. The supplies to the outer temples. Were there difficulties with the transports? I hadn’t realised how bad the ashstorms had become.’

‘No, archcanon.’ His voice wavered, angry tears forming in his eyes. ‘They - they never left the city. When Andas heard what we were organising, his people seized the stores, had them guarded day and night.’

‘Well,’ Saryoni rubbed her forehead, ‘that’s one more thing for Captain Andas and I to discuss, isn’t it.’

‘Is that where you’re headed?’ Falavel rattled the key in the lock, popping it open with a creak. ‘His force is a hundred strong, more if they draw guards back from the bridges, and all stationed outside the plaza at St Olms. If they attack… they’re not trained soldiers in there, archcanon! Some of our healers are with them!’

Saryoni squeezed past him, taking up half the doorframe. ‘Are they, indeed? Our people are more radical than I realised. Find me their names, Falavel, I want them promoted.’

‘Archcanon?’ Falavel blinked at her.

‘Oh, for pity’s sake. It’s Saryoni, Falavel. By the Three, all this formality… what a waste.’

‘Oh! Um… good. Saryoni. Tholer Saryoni. This may take some practice, archcan- hmm.’

‘No time like the present, Falavel.’ She stood in her chambers, not entirely patiently.

The acolyte suddenly realised where he was, and what he was interrupting. ‘Oh!!’ he squeaked. ‘I’ll see you at the bridge, archc-S-saryoni?’

‘I have some business at the palace, first,’ she smiled.

Falavel had already fled.

‘Baby steps, I suppose,’ she said to the room. ‘Now...’

The Archcanon of the Tribunal Temple prepared to two things none of her predecessors had ever accomplished. Get the god-king to listen, and bring the ordinators to heel.

In one night. On four hours’ sleep. Smelling faintly of algae.

_Saints preserve us_.

* * *

Captain Elam Andas squinted up at the sky. Clouds were knitting together in great, dark fists, and the first drops of rain sputtered onto his face, whipped almost horizontal by the wind. So be it.

He had arrived at the St Olms canton earlier that morning, pulling over a hundred ordinators - almost half the city’s standing force - to sweep the lower levels, for secret entrances, weapons caches, a stash of the little peddler’s illicit doctrines. Nothing. Whoever was inside that plaza was coming out in shackles or under a linen sheet.

The sun was behind the horizon, and not one among the bookseller and his gang of apostates had heeded his offer of mercy.

So be it.

Andas climbed the last staircase, onto the western balcony, where a great statue of St Olms the Just bowed toward his twin, St Delyn the Wise, across the high bridge between cantons. A hundred golden faces greeted him, dispassionate, incorruptible.

‘Report.’

One of their number, wearing the red epaulettes of a sergeant, turned to greet him. ‘The ram has arrived from the workshop sir, ready for your orders.’ She indicated a stout wooden pole, handholds bolted onto either side.

‘Has it been tested?’

‘In the workshop, yes, sir. On thicker wood than these old things. Won’t be a problem.’

‘Good. The men know their roles?’

‘Yes, sir. We know the layout of the plaza well, and can guess how the insurgents will have altered the space. We also know they have nowhere to fall back, and that no new forces have entered since the canton was blockaded. Once the ram is through, a team of ten will capture a front line. Once the line has been set, the team will signal us, and further teams will overwhelm the space quickly, and demoralise the enemy. Minimal casualties, no heroes.’

Andas nodded, satisfied. Strode past the sergeant to inspect the ordinators. ‘You know these men personally, sergeant?

‘Not all of them sir. A handful of reserves called up from Molag Mar.’ Several masked figures touched their fists to their hearts in salute. Andas nodded.

‘I _specifically_ ordered no such thing, sergeant.’ The rain was falling harder now, though the captain made no outward sign of it.

‘The order was for one hundred men, sir. Our own forces have been on duty day and night for a week. These men arrived days ago, and volunteered for action-’

With dizzying speed, Andas spun round on the sergeant, slamming the back of his mailed gauntlet against her face, knocking her helmet clean off. She sprawled to the ground with a heavy thud, the stern, golden face skittering away along the wet stone pavement. The ordinators stood frozen, rain drumming off their gleaming shoulders.

Andas held out his other hand to her. She wiped the blood from her nose, and took it, hauled herself back to her feet.

The captain leaned in close. ‘Question my orders in front of the men again, and you can throw those pretty epaulettes in the sea. Dismissed.’

She began to stutter a response, but caught herself. ‘Y-yes, sir.’ She saluted and marched briskly away, gathering her helmet and heading for the barracks.

Andas turned to the ordinators, each standing still as the grave. ‘The detail from Molag Mar,’ he spoke quietly, barely louder than the pitting of the rain, ‘are also dismissed. Report to the south bridge, make sure the Temple crossing is secure.’

Half a dozen troops saluted and quickly made off toward the Temple canton.

Andas stood before the remaining force, hands clenched behind his back. ‘We are the Ordinators of the Holy City of Vivec,’ he spoke, voice calm and clear and steady. ‘We do not require the aid of second-rate guardsmen from a backwater market canton. This plaza,’ he pointed toward the great oak door, ‘Would fall to us with only twenty of Vivec’s men, ten. Understood?’

A loud, unison affirmation.

‘These heretics are a stain on Lord Vivec's holy ground,’ he continued, pacing along the front line of golden masks. ‘We have offered them mercy, and they spit in our outstretched hands. All we may do now is offer them justice, either by the Ministry of Truth,’ he drew his sword from its scabbard, ‘or by the glory of Almsivi.’

A loud, unison affirmation.

‘Each of you know what you must do, with the Three as our witness, and in the wisdom and mastery of the god-king.’ Andas’ hair was matted close to his scalp, rain tracing the lines of his face.

‘Do it.’

* * *

Tholer Saryoni hitched up her robes as she climbed the great staircase up to Vivec’s palace. She glared at the clouds, which had opened like a dam. She was no drier than when she’d dragged herself out of the bay. She stopped to catch her breath at the peak, turned to look out over the city. The crowd outside the Hall of Wisdom buzzing with movement, a smattering of magelights casting a ghostly shine across faces too small to identify.

A gathering of torches at the western gate of the St Olms plaza, dozens of tiny golden soldiers in formation. A handful carried something squat and heavy between them, up the stairs toward the doors.

Saryoni’s heart thrummed in her chest. Now or never.

She pushed open the door to the palace of the god-king, the being who had carved the largest buildings in Vvardenfell from living rock, who had stopped the moon with the power of their magic, who had ruled over Morrowind for four thousand years, who had conquered death and taken their place among the crowned heads of the divine.

They had brewed a pot of tea.

‘Tholer! There you are, dear, I was starting to worry.’

Saryoni was in the middle of what appeared to be a sitting room, two high-backed armchairs angled toward a fireplace, the logs stacked high, the flames roaring. Seated in one was a small, elegant mer in a purple dressing gown, one leg folded finely over the other, beaming a quite beautiful smile. Saryoni noticed her robes were bone-dry, and perhaps a little softer to the touch. Between the chairs was a low table with two clay cups and a kettle.

‘I already had some, hope you don’t mind, dear. It’s best when it’s piping hot, isn’t it?’

The room didn’t seem to have any doors.

‘Dearest,’ they took their mug from the table and took a little sip, ‘we are in a pocket dimension adrift in time and space. When you leave, no time will have passed.’ A thought crossed their mind. ‘But you look positively exhausted! Why don’t you grab forty winks before we chat, what do you say?’

One of the armchairs was a four-poster bed. It looked soft as a cloud.

Saryoni shook herself. ‘Gods, would you stop!?’

Vivec, god-king of the Dunmer people, raised an eyebrow. Took another sip. ‘I thought you’d be happy to see me, what has it been, sixty years for you?’

‘I am! It has, I… this isn’t a tea party, my Lord, some of the finest citizens of _your_ city are very likely to die, _right now_, and I might be one of the few mortals with both the power _and_ the inclination to prevent it.’

Vivec hummed in their armchair, bobbed one leg gently, gazing at the fireplace. ‘That _does_ sound stressful, dear. However,’

\- a brief sensation of motion in total darkness, floating, but without a sense of weight or direction -

‘I simply cannot abide to see you all worn out like this. There now, isn’t that better?’

Saryoni blinked. She felt as though she had come back from a week at the seaside, after several consecutive nights of deep and blissful slumber. The four-poster bed was an armchair.

‘Lord Vivec-’

‘Oh, just ‘Vivec’ is fine between us, dearest. No need for all that...’ they waved a fine hand, ‘formality.’

Saryoni felt the butt of a cruel joke. ‘_Vivec_. I have business to attend with you, and I do not intend to tolerate this… _dismissive_ attitude. By the gods above and below, I swear I will-’

‘You will what, dear.’ They gazed up at her across a steaming brew.

Saryoni swallowed. A wonderful thought occurred to her. ‘I will reform the temple, dismiss the charges against the dissident priests, and finally reveal to the people of Morrowind,’ she placed herself neatly into the armchair, ‘the truth about you.’ She really did feel much better.

Vivec gave a half-smile and poured her a cup of tea. It smelled smoky, and sweet, and blended beautifully with the incense drifting off the fire. ‘That’s more like it, dear,’ they smirked, golden flashes in their pale eyes. ‘Now, you were going to tell me about Dagoth Ur, and the Nerevarine, and the forsaken Heart beneath Red Mountain, right?’

Saryoni nearly choked on her tea. ‘You _know?_’

Their laugh was a flock of birds in song. ‘Of _course_ I know, dear! I’ve known for a very, _very_ long time. But you always think the day will never come… poor, sweet Almalexia, she’s going to take it very hard, I fear.’

‘Alma- alright, one thing at a time. What I’ve learned lately, it’s… the Temple cannot hold itself together like this. The surveillance, the persecution, the dogma. It’s… not right, it’s never been right. We can’t keep doing this, keep _being_ this.’

Vivec tilted their head toward her. ‘_Darling_, are you asking me to _abolish_ myself?’

Saryoni glanced down at her mug, sank back into the chair with a wry smile. ‘Worth a try, I suppose.’

‘You’re no radical, Tholer.’ They said it kindly, but it stung. ‘And what if I do. What if I say, _no gods_, _no_ _kings_, _only mer!!_’ They thrust a clenched fist in the air. ‘Would that blunt the emperor’s swords? Diminish the East Empire Company’s valuation of Vvardenfell’s ‘natural resources’? It’s lovely to be thought of so highly, dear, but not everyone cares so greatly about an old and dying god.’

‘Well, that’s not- Wait, ‘dying’?’ Saryoni placed their cup on the low table. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Well, darling, when your little friends or, gods forbid, my old compatriot Dagoth, toss the Heart of Lorkhan into the inferno…’ they clicked their fingers, ‘that’s it for our little racket, I’m afraid. I’ll hang around for a _while_, of course, I wouldn’t want to just leave everything in disarray, but... well.’

A cloud crossed their features for a second, a look Saryoni had never seen before. She almost wanted to… console them.

‘That’s a sweet thought, dearest, but rather misplaced.’ There was mirth in their words, but not much.

Saryoni closed her eyes a moment, deep in thought. ‘So. Hold on. Is this… goodbye?’

A warm, broad smile crossed their features. ‘Nothing ever truly _dies_, Tholer. But some things change, and cannot change back.’ They settled deep into the armchair, leaning their weight into the headrest. ‘Listen, dearest, I’m afraid there’s not much I can do to stop a bunch of armed goons doing whatever they’re going to do. Not without making the kind of mess that can’t be tidied easily. But maybe we can figure out something a bit more… long term.’ A raised brow, delicate and full of promise.

Saryoni glanced down at her empty teacup, which was a lot larger than it had been, and filled to the brim.

‘Fine,’ she lifted the cup from the table, felt the heat from the fire, the clarity of her mind. Her readiness. ‘Let’s talk.’

* * *

Lena Oxton woke with a start, something pressing tight around her ribs.

After a second, it all came flooding back. She sighed deeply and pulled a pair of long, strong arms closer, one across her shoulders, another round her waist. Leaned back into the scent of her lover, the sweat and the earth of her, the good musk of their blankets. Felt the steadiness of breath on her neck, a firm heartbeat blending with her own, echoing everywhere their skin met.

The gorgeous ache in all the best places.

Oxton was quite aware that she had been hugging LaCroix with both arms for some minutes. She didn’t care. Their night together had been real, and if she had to cuddle once in dreams and _again_ the waking world, well, that was a sacrifice she could make. The door of the tent fluttered a little in the breeze, and she could see shadows from a campfire flickering across the ashen earth.

Eventually she wriggled herself free of her lover’s grasp. LaCroix made no movement, no sound: if she woke her, would she become part of this world too? The thief decided some questions were better left unanswered. She slipped on her travelling gear and ducked underneath the tent flap.

The stars. Every single last one. Dashed across the ink-blue darkness, from velvety red galaxies to glassy aurorae. She was transfixed for a moment, stunned into reverent silence.

‘_MY BOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY_'

Oxton nearly soiled her breeches. ‘Talos in his _fucking_ red wheelbarrow.’

Peakstar laughed bawdily. ‘Never gets old.’ She was sitting on a long low bench in front of a tidy little blaze, holding a stick above the flames. Stuck on the end of it was some kind of confectionery. ‘Hungry?’

‘Always,’ Oxton replied, easily. ‘Doesn’t make us even though.’ She took the stick from Peakstar’s hand, chewed on the pale, melting lump.

‘Had marshmallows before, huh.’

‘Sure, butcher in Wayrest used to give em out on feast days,’ she explained through a sticky mouthful. ‘Take it no-one can hear us.’

‘Nope, which is more than I could say for _you two_.’

Oxton coughed up a hunk of sugar as her cheeks blazed. ‘Oh _fuck_ _off_, I thought I was holding back and all!’

Peakstar cracked up again, a big round note of joy in the darkness. ‘Ahh, I’m kidding ya, Lena! I just spotted your charming friend in there and put two and two together. Guess I wasn’t wrong.’ She jerked her head toward the tent, offered her fist in congratulations.

‘Mara’s beef,’ Oxton bumped it politely, a bashful half-smile on her face. ‘And here I was worried about corrupting you.’

‘_Much_ too late,’ she winked, and leaned forward, gazing up toward the stars. ‘Guess we’ve got some business to attend to, huh.’ Her infectious energy was a little faded.

‘Mm, s’pose I don’t know when I’ll drag myself out of here by accident.’

‘Few hours, maybe,’ Peakstar said to the sky. 

'Uh... should I be taking notes here? I didn’t go to sleep with any drawing utensils on me.’

‘Oh Lena,’ Peakstar smirked, ‘sweet, innocent Lena.’ She made some elaborate motions in the air with her arms. ‘That’s not how this place works _at all_.’ When she finished waving her hands, a drafting table was in front of Oxton, with parchment and charcoal. It was at just the right height.

‘Ah, it’s a lucid dreaming kinda thing, okay. Here,’ she wagged a finger, ‘how come I can do fire magic now? I did it in that dungeon you dreamt up and now I can do it, like, for real.’

‘I’unno,’ the incarnate shrugged. ‘Magic, prob’ly.’

The thief mugged wryly. ‘Right. Shoulda guessed.’ She picked up the charcoal, sketched a few little designs, the Thieves’ Guild mark, the Sixth House mark, a moon and star with little smiley faces. ‘Gods,’ she sighed. ‘All the hero stories I ever read, they’re all… in _control_, y’know? Sir Swingsadick _decides_ to sod off into the forest, _chooses _to climb the mountain, _determines _that the maiden is saved. I hardly know what I'm having for breakfast.’

She glanced up from the parchment at her companion. Peakstar’s smile had faded entirely, and Oxton could have sworn the campfire she was staring blankly into was burning just a little dimmer than before. ‘Lena?’ she asked, not quite meeting the thief’s eyes.

‘Yeah, mate?’

‘_Gods_… I don’t even know if this is something I can ask for, but… promise you’ll come back? Like, when all this is over?’

Oxton bit the last of the mallow off the stick, wiped her face with the back of her hand. Turned so her feet sat on either side of the bench, facing the Urshilaku’s youngest incarnate. ‘Mate,’ she said, reaching out a hand, ‘if it’s even remotely in my power, I promise, I will find you again.’ Peakstar smiled, a little embarrassed as she took it.

‘Course,’ Oxton continued, looking out to the southern horizon, where Red Mountain cut a black wedge into the fabric of the night, ‘if it goes half as bad as I reckon it might, I won't have much say in the matter anyhow.’

Peakstar gave a weak laugh, squeezed Oxton’s hand as she let it go. ‘Yeah, course. I should’ve thought of that. But, for what it’s worth,’ she pushed the heel of her palm into her eye socket, closing one big, blank eye, ‘I really hope you live, and get to go see the whole world, or not, if you don’t want to, but either way, please... come back and tell me all about it?’

Oxton breathed as she tried to hold herself steady. She ran a finger round the corner of one eye. ‘That’s a bloody good reason to try and stay alive, love,’ she sighed. ‘Thank you.’

Peakstar nodded for a moment, then briskly slapped her thighs. ‘So! Wanna hear about all the places you might die?’

‘Ha!’ Oxton barked. ‘Sounds like my kinda party.’

Under more stars than the mortal plane had ever seen at once, two Nerevarines drew up a plan to save their world.


	20. An Ending

And like that, Tholer Saryoni was standing outside the divine palace, her hand still on the door. She squeezed the handle, and it did not budge. She turned to look over her shoulder, half-expecting the god-king to be there, smiling curiously and asking whatever she was up to.

Only the rain there, falling in steady rhythm on the stones of the great staircase. From far off in the Inner Sea, a thunderclap, for lightning that must have flashed, from her perspective, a very long time ago. She touched the fabric of her robe, soft and dry, its colours brilliant, even in the half-light of torches and magic.

As she closed her eyes and drew in a long breath, she felt a lightness in her shoulders, in her spine, as if all the years of struggle and uncertainty had fallen away, like a mudcrab’s used-up carapace. She had told Vivec of her plans, and Vivec had inscribed them in their book, and they were no longer hers to carry. As she descended the staircase, her feet hardly felt like they touched the ground.

Falavel was waiting for her. He wore a long cloak about his person, and vainly held a parasol above Saryoni’s head. ‘You’re done already?’ He seemed concerned. He would seem concerned for all his days, Saryoni imagined.

‘Vivec is a quick thinker,’ she smiled. ‘We spoke of many things, Falavel. Of what may change willingly,’ she glanced up toward the St Olms canton, flecked with torchlight, ‘and what may not.’

Falavel nodded hesitantly. ‘You’re… you’re going to speak to Captain Andas, aren’t you.’

She strode off toward the Fane. ‘Unless you plan to stop me,’ she smiled.

‘I…’ he jogged slightly ahead of her, stopped in her path. ‘I might.’

She tilted her head, amused. ‘Acolyte Falavel, whatever has gotten into you?’

‘Me?’ he squeezed out. ‘What about _you_? You march out of here on a moment’s notice, the damned ordinators take over, you march _right_ back in…’

She placed a calming hand on his shoulder. ‘Everything is going to be all right, Falavel. We cannot just run away from difficult situations.’ She pressed past him, the noise of crowd at the Fane growing ever deeper, as if the very flagstones were cursing the injustice.

‘A-arch- Saryoni! This is not _difficult situations! _This is the temple guard, a _show of strength_. What, a-are you just going to walk on up there and, and, _tell him off?_’

‘Yes,’ she said coolly, ‘not just me, though.’

‘Saryoni?’ He jogged after her. ‘Wait, I still think we-’

Archcanon Tholer Saryoni strode up the stairs of the High Fane, to a point overlooking the low terrace where a crowd of near a thousand souls – more, maybe? how many had fled here before the blockade began? - started, one by one, and soon in murmuring clusters, to notice her arrival. She stood in her robes, pelted with rain, until the chanting began: her chosen name, her accepted role, rung out across the bay. She held a hand for quiet, and received it.

‘We do not have time,’ she shouted, as sheet lightning ignited the sky, ‘for sermons.’ Nervous anticipation charged the air between her and the crowd, only a few feet below her, and Saryoni resisted the urge to puncture it. Not this time. ‘I must apologise,’ she continued, ‘for my absence, and what has arisen in its place. I have failed you,’ a few loud cries of dissent as the thunder rumbled through, ‘and must make amends.’ She pointed toward the palace. ‘I have met with Lord Vivec, and we have spoken for many days and nights,’ this was, from some perspectives, not untrue, ‘and we have come to an accord.’

She let the words hang in the air, thunder rumbling over the horizon, the rain a constant fizz in her ears. ‘No citizen should fear their leaders.’ Applause, a few cheers. ‘No ordinator should kill without consequence.’ Louder this time, affirmations echoing across the canals. ‘And no captain of the guard is above the authority of the people he serves.’ Her words landed with the force of wind, of the sea and sky, of the moon and stars. 

‘There is danger across that bridge,’ she continued, feeling the energy in the air down her arms, her fingertips, ‘but that danger stands on dishonest ground. I am ready to put my life in Vivec’s hands,’ her heart fluttered as she prepared to chance her arm, and in doing so wilfully endanger no small number of the souls in her care. She swallowed the feeling, felt every note of its bitterness. ‘Who will go with me?’ she yelled through the storm.

The yell in response rang in her ears louder than any thunderclap. She stepped forward, and the crowd parted for her. She noticed Falavel at her side, eyes full of apprehension. She nodded to him, hoped to convey something of reassurance. The look he returned showed little of it, but he squared his shoulders anyway, and walked with her.

Slowly, they had made their way through the throng to the waterline, to the bridge from the Temple to St Olms, and to the guards standing in their way. Despite the disturbance, only a handful remained at their posts. Their number thinned by the fighting on the plaza? Saryoni’s mind filled with desperate hopes of mass desertion, a miraculous wave of repentance, but replaced just as swiftly with memos, meetings, reports, worsening by the month, of exactly what the guards were willing to do to retain their vision of order, in full view of god and mer. _No time for foolish dreams_, came a voice, and Saryoni’s heart was in her throat.

So much so, in fact, that she still had absolutely no notion what to say to the stocky ordinator on the other side of the bridge by the time she had marched halfway across it. Standing a little ahead of his colleagues, his heavy boots in combat-ready stance, hand twitching above his scabbard. She stared into the cold, sculpted eyes of his golden helm, prayed he could not see the doubt in her own.

Some of the braver of her followers were making their feelings known, quite vocally. Saryoni stood tall, several strides ahead of them, head uncovered in the driving rain. Another flash of lightning, and for a fraction of a second the holy city was in neither day nor night. Then, for a breath, no sound but water against rock.

From behind the ordinator, a tremulous voice. ‘Sarge, that’s the archcan-’

‘_I fucking know who it is_,’ the sergeant bellowed back. ‘Piss and _blood_, constable.’

Saryoni decided to take mercy. ‘I merely intend to speak with your superior, sergeant. There is no need for confrontation.’

His shoulders were bunched, like a cornered animal. ‘You can talk to whoever you like, _they_ aren’t going anywhere.’ He drew his sword then, drawing a hundred yells of outrage.

Saryoni held up a hand for peace. ‘On my authority as archcanon,’ she was, once again, in her element, ‘the faithful of the temple shall go where they please.’

He seemed to make a few calculations, before sheathing his weapon, and stepping forward to the archcanon, hands raised. He leaned in toward her.

‘If you go up there with this mob, the captain will have my head.’ His voice was low, and his fear sounded genuine.

‘Sergeant, I promise you,’ Saryoni held his gaze, ‘that the captain has done far worse to innocent people for less.’ She patted him round the pauldron as she passed. He cast a look at the oncoming crowd and ran.

* * *

A chorus of _The Benediction of St Olms_ had broken out among the crowd as they reached the upper balcony. The singing quickly faltered as the scene unfolded before them.

The great old doors to the plaza were a mess of splinters and split planks, a ragged hole several feet high, the sound of clashing steel, magical blasts and feral yelling echoing out into the night. A tall ordinator, armour badly dented, the cloth under his epaulettes singed black, was dragging a compatriot to safety.

Opposite the doors, a row of four guards were laid out, being tended to, however inexpertly, by their colleagues. Saryoni could see no blood, and one of the wounded was talking, with some agitation, though their limbs were leaden. She dearly hoped their paralysis was of the magical variety. The sound of yelling drew her attention to a ruck formed some distance from the door, the voice of Elam Andas rising over the din.

The crowd from the temple looked on as several ordinators intercepted them, forming a cordon at the head of the stairs. Saryoni was, for the moment, isolated. Across the great bridge between St Olms and St Delyn, another, even larger crowd had formed, being held at bay by at least a dozen guards, swords drawn and sparks of lightning magic wielded openly. Upon seeing the archcanon, a sound like a mountain falling spilled out across the breach.

This grabbed Andas’ attention, and he shoved his way through the scrum, eyes wide as he beheld the archcanon. Saryoni fought to keep her breathing steady, picturing in her mind the souls of her ancestors flanking her on all sides.

_What would they think of her? Is this their fight? Would they recognise her if they saw her now?_

She did her best to exhale those anxieties. Let the rain wash them clear. She felt it run from her head to her feet, into the slick paving stones.

There was fire in Andas’ eyes. ‘This is a Hall of Justice matter, Saryoni, you have no business here,’ he jabbed a mailed hand toward her. ‘_Men_,’ he yelled over his shoulder, ‘escort the archcanon back to the Temple, weapons ready.’ His lip seemed to vibrate under the strain, and Saryoni had not seen him blink.

The guards seemed to look to each other for confirmation, half a dozen golden faces silently begging things might go another way.

Saryoni raised a hand, ‘There is no need-’

‘_NOW!!_’ Andas screamed, spittle flying into the rain. A few guards complied, drawing their golden swords and stepping carefully toward her. A monstrous shriek came from crowds on both sides of the St Olms bridge as the ordinators drew closer. A lone firebolt flashed into the sky above St Delyn, fizzling out in the deluge. A warning shot.

‘Put those _damned_ things away.’ Saryoni was seething. ‘I am the Archcanon of the Tribunal Temple, and I have come straight from an audience with Vivec themself, you damned _fools_.’

A moment’s hesitation. Andas bore his teeth into what might have been a smile. ‘What desperate nonsense Saryoni. You wander off on some secret errand for over a week, sparking the gravest security crisis in a generation, and the Lord simply _waves you in!?_’

‘_Sparking? _Andas, this was a peaceful protest until your guards showed up, armed to the teeth. They had a bloody soup kitchen! What on earth were they doing that so offends you!?’

‘Pathetic, a week’s holiday and you return a propagandist,’ he sneered, a little of that tension drifting away from him. ‘Strategy was never your strength. But I’m willing to overlook this interference.’ He turned again to the armed guards. ‘Provided you vacate this place _willingly_. This is a matter for the Justiciers, Saryoni. Don’t make this official. Move along.’

Saryoni drew herself tall, the ancestors of her mind’s eye squaring up beside her. ‘I am moving nowhere until the people in that plaza are _safe_.’

‘They forfeited their _safety_,’ Andas hissed, ‘when they spat on my offer of mercy. As do you, apparently. Take her away,’ he said, pointing a finger at the archcanon’s heart.

As the guards reached out toward her, Saryoni heard a yell from the crowd, a young man squeezing his way through the cordon, running toward her.

‘Falavel,’ she managed, as he barrelled forward, the crowd from the temple suddenly barged forward into the guards’ line, a hundred pilgrims crushing against a dozen heavily armed soldiers.

With a desperate lunge, the young acolyte threw himself at the nearest ordinator, landing on their left shoulder and clinging on, flailing his free arm, wrenching at the guard’s helm.

The guard suddenly shifted their weight, flipping him to the ground, as Andas’ voice, suddenly distant in Saryoni’s ears, demanded his capture. Across the bridge, loud screams as the breath was driven out of the young priest’s lungs. He pushed himself backwards, gasping, pressing his back against the wall of the balcony, a sheer drop into the ink-dark water just inches behind.

As the ordinator closed in on him, Saryoni felt a strong, armoured hand clasping her wrist behind her back, driving a yelp of pain from her. Yelling came from the guards’ cordon as two, three, half a dozen more burst through, kicking and screaming. Pain coursing through her like a thunderbolt, Saryoni cast her free hand over her shoulder, throwing a magelight straight through the eyeholes of her golden-masked captor.

A howl of frustration as they released her hand, as flares streaked into the darkness above the cantons like a pyromancer’s show. Saryoni stumbled forward, reaching for her acolyte - ‘he’s done nothing-!’ - as two ordinators bore down on him, one grabbing him by the throat, the other driving a steel fist into his diaphragm. More yelling from the door, as several more of the faithful rushed the plaza, throwing fists and fireballs.

Saryoni stumbled on toward Falavel, his face purple, his eyes rolling back in his head - ‘you’re killing him!’ - the ordinator who struck him spotted the archcanon, alerted his partner - ‘behind!’ - who dropped the priest, and drew his golden sword, and turned, and

Tholer Saryoni froze, as distant thunder rolled over the holy city, felt her breath pushed out of her, rasping, a hot explosion of pain. She looked up into a cold, placid, golden face she’d seen a hundred thousand times across a century in the Fane, and saw, through the dark gaps at the eye sockets, shock and recognition and profound, lurching fear.

The ordinator drew back his sword with a sick, wet sound, as the archcanon grabbed at his epaulettes for balance. She couldn’t feel her feet, and as she looked down, saw the colours of her robes turn dark, dark, dark.

‘But…’

Archcanon Saryoni slipped out of his grip, felt the dull thud of stone beneath her, heard the distant sounds of anger, rage, animal fire. She felt her body lifted to head height, gasped as the pain shot through her and air refused to fill her lungs, turned her head to see a thousand bodies descend like a great wave upon the few dozen battered and tired guards, the captain’s howling voice snuffed out beneath hands and feet and cries of grief and fury.

She tilted her head toward the St Delyn canton, and saw two figures standing on the bridge between one side and the next, a beautiful woman in a glowing blue-green dress, and a young Dunmer in the plain robes of the Urshilaku wise woman, shoulders squared, a staff in one hand and a pack over her shoulder.

The crowd burst through the lines behind them, a golden body sailing down, down toward the dark water below, and then the figures were gone.

Saryoni felt a smile cross her face, as she was carried above the shoulders of her people and out of the lion’s mouth. ‘But,’ she felt the words form, sluggish and dreamy in her mouth, ‘I have so much work to do…’

And then Tholer Saryoni felt the world slip softly away from her, and all was white.

* * *

In the foothills of Red Mountain, a young woman shifts in her sleep, held tight in her lover’s arms, and clutches, tight in her fingers, a broad roll of parchment, covered from edge to edge in fine, charcoal sketches of the inner facilities of Dagoth Ur.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all, hope you're doing okay! Apologies if this was a rough one, here's a little permission to do a nice thing for yourself if you need it/feel like it. <3
> 
> Thanks so much for reading, and if it wasn't clear already, we are *pretty* close to the end now! Will hopefully have the last main chapter (or suite of chapters, like the last couple updates) ready to go by the start of next month.
> 
> Free Vivec, talk soon,  
Tx


End file.
